How To Do Nothing At All
by Falaphesian
Summary: In a world of possibility, Xigbar's only desire is to do absolutely nothing.   With Luxord in tow, the two set off on a most grand adventure to determine just how many things they can get by without doing.  'Nothing' has never been so full of 'something.'
1. Childhood of a Modern Pirate

What's this? Something new, refreshing, and rather odd. Hopefully. Tell me your opinions—still updating other things as well and as fast as I can. Love to you all for your patience and stellar reviews. You make my world spin at a nice, lazy, tolerable pace in space.

(x) (x) (x)

**How to do Nothing at All.**

'Childhood of a Modern Pirate'

Xigbar was born in 1989. Nine. Teen. Eighty. Nine. A good year for ducks, perhaps. Nineteen-eighty-nine and Reagan told them to tear down the wall that would bring little baby Xig a-roaring on into the world in a burst of the typical blood, gore and amniotic-fluid-fountain.

In contrast, Luxord was a test tube baby, but that's neither here nor there at the moment, so just keep it together for another few.

Having been tossed into the world immediately following the end of the Cold War, it would stand to reason that Xigbar's life would be full of nothing but possibility and potential. No more fear, no more nightmares-- not for the children of the coming nineties-- nope, nadda. Seventies babies, eighties babies, they'd grown up with the notion that they would never grow up at all, wiped out by a nuke before they so much as got the chance to be de-virginized by some crack-happy someone or other. For your benefit, I shall now refer you to the absolutely educational film: 'Dr. Strange Love, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb.' Go. Enlighten yourself.

...Now that you are undoubtedly educated on the situation of the times, we shall carry on.

Xigbar-- being born right on the cusp of a carefree cesspool of drugs and fun, was seen by his parents as their shining light for a new future. Xiggy, as they would come to call the poor boy with the squint in his right eye and prematurely graying hair-- their _Xiggy_ was _bound_ for some _damn_ great things, no doubt about it. It was then, of course, quite the shock when Xigbar decided to do absolutely nothing for his entire life. When asked what he would like to be when he grew up, Xigbar would shrug, screw up his eyebrows and that one squinty right eye and say: "Dunno. Nothin' much, I guess. Sit around. Maybe stand."

And they all thought he was joking-- that was the silly part about it. Yes, they all thought he was joking-- all except Luxord, who took Xigbar's apathy most seriously and told Xigbar so on several occasions.

"Xig, I really think you mean it when you say you're going to amount to nothing. Doesn't bother you in the least, does it? No? Okay then."

The way the two of them met was quite a treat-- a regular dark chocolate, rum-laced delight in a cold vanilla bean world. Luxord was walking on a split-rail fence (a decorative sort of thing, as no one in their right mind chooses split-rail over electric anymore) when he stepped on someone's arm and fell off. The arm, as most arms were, back in the day, was attached to a shoulder, which was attached to a chest, which held-- perched on the very top-- the head of a rather average-sized boy with a rather average-looking face. Well, average, when you remove that premature gray and that poor, sad little eye of his. The proper eye was glaring something fierce at Luxord and Luxord felt compelled to glare back.

Perhaps he would've done so and that would've been the end of that, but when Luxord noticed the squinty eye, he figured that his glare would've been only half-felt, and therefore, hardly worth the trouble. As a boy, Luxord believed that if you were going to do something, you should do it to its fullest extent. Otherwise, you shouldn't do it all. In other words, there was no point in riding a bike if you were not going to get into BMX, just as there was no point in coloring in coloring books unless you were going to make each little page into its own little masterpiece.

The two struck up a conversation of sorts, and since Luxord was neither stupid nor cruel enough to ask about Xigbar's hair and eyes, Xigbar was neither stupid nor cruel enough to tell the kid off about walking on his arm. They exchanged the usual, pertinent information of the age-- favorite colors, favorite board games, how many slugs they ate before they were six-- and then began to talk serious after Xigbar's step dad had stepped outside and told him that lunch was in an hour.

"Bring your new friend along, if you'd like!" the man had said.

"Okay, Kurt," Xigbar had said.

Luxord blinked. Questioned: "Kurt?"

"Yeah."

"Why don't you call your dad Dad?"

"Because he's not my dad."

"Oh. So where's your dad?"

"He loves his yoga teacher."

"What's yoga?"

"I dunno."

"Oh. Well. My dad's not around either."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Is he in love with his yoga teacher, too?"

"No, he's dead."

"Oh."

"Mom killed him with a fork and now she's in _fed_-ral prison. I live with my sister."

"I've never met anyone whose mom was in _fed_-ral prison before."

"And I've never met anyone whose dad ran away with a yoga teacher."

And then, in all the span of a split second, the planets aligned, the stars smiled, the alligators in the great big Nile turned circles, and a most spectacular friendship written in between the blanks of the two boys sitting against the split-rail fence.

Luxord liked being friends with Xigbar because Xigbar was rich and being friends with Xigbar made Luxord look rich, too. Like Xigbar, Luxord wasn't really sure what he wanted to do with his life either, but he thought he'd give it a chance so long as it let him hang loose and live up what he wanted to live up and live down what he wanted to live down.

It was probably a good thing Luxord happened to be around when he was, seeing as children are capable of being immensely cruel without even know it and without Luxord, Xigbar probably would've fallen prey to the host of perfectly glowing bitty bodies around him. No one likes boys with squinty eyes. No one wants to be friends with a guy with the squints. Yes indeed. Xigbar was lucky to have Luxord. Luxord gave him a pirate eye patch for his seventh birthday and said, "Here, Xig. Now we can play pirates." And after that, Xigbar was a pirate every day and no one was the wiser of the squinty eye ever again.

"Isn't it weird how every-freakin'-body noticed when I had the squint, but no one even cares when I wander around looking like a damn pirate?" Xigbar would ask.

And to that, Luxord would simply say: "Well, pirates are brilliant."

It was never a matter of things being 'cool' or 'neat.' Things were always 'brilliant' with Luxord. When Xigbar won the sixth grade spelling bee, he was quite 'brilliant' and quite capable. And then, at the county tournament, he misspelled the word 'piracy', which was ironic as it was pathetic. But to Luxord, he was still bloody brilliant.

Bloody Brilliant and his Bloody Sidekick roamed the side streets of the 'burbs of the 90s, crashing every block party and raiding every cookie jar they could get their grubby mitts on, near, or around. Their legacy was a giant pit filled with dog shit. They called it, most appropriately, the Shit Pit, and it was just as much fun putting the entire thing together as it was luring neighborhood freaks and geeks into the pit.

"Sora, you wanna come play with us?"

"Really guys?"

"Sure, come over here!"

"O-okay!"

_Squelch_.

Nine times out of ten, the Shit Pit successfully pulled off the sneakers of whoever was moron enough to set foot in it. Xigbar and Luxord made a victory dance accompanied by whooping laughter and pumping fists and it was all they could do not to explode with their own egos at the end of every summer day they spent in one another's company. The summer of '69 had nothing on the summer of '99. Drugs, sex and revolution had _nothing_ on the Shit Pit.

But, as luck would have it, as fate would have it, and as the trends of the times would also have it, such things were not meant to last forever. That doesn't necessarily mean they didn't last a long, long time-- by any means, a friendship spanning four years or so is nothing to be laughed at by a child's terms. Four years is the stuff of epic friendships, of lasting friendships, of a solid kind of, driven kind of, pulled, stuck, and embedded kind of...

Relationship.

Such things were discussed-- brother to sister to sister to brother-- over a private school brochure and two cups of steaming water with lemon juice added for flavor. Neither Larxene nor her brother drank coffee.

"Uh. Hey Luxord?"

"Yeah?"

"I think you're gay for Xigbar."

"...Eh?"

"So Marluxia says I should, like... enroll you in this academy thing. You know. Private school. Mum said so, too. Talked to her on the phone last night."

"..."

"Personally, I don't give a damn. But Mum stabbed Dad with a fork, so I'd do what she says."

"..."

"If she says you should go get your ass straightened at... what was it... whatever the heck this place is… _Bridges_. Yeah. _The Bridges Academy_. Anyway. If she says you should go get your ass straightened out there, well, I'd do what she says."

"But what about Xigbar? What about my _friends_?"

"...Boohoo, Luxy. You'll make new friends. For some reason, people think you're charismatic." Larxene paused. Sipped her tea. Made a face. "...For some reason, people are absolute _idiots_."

The private school was one of a string of prestigious prep schools nationally acclaimed along the east coast. For all that Luxord's mother was a felon, she had at least demonstrated her good taste in education when selecting said school with Larxene's fiancée. Larxene herself had had little to nothing to do with the matter. She'd been out getting three shots down the street from the prison at the local watering hole and hadn't even been sober when Marluxia had broken the news to her. Nor had she been sober when Luxord had punched her in the nose two months later when he was told of his own fate, a hot summer skin clinging to his shoulders as they heaved and shook with something Larxene could not quite understand as emotion.

The two had handled the matter like true siblings, though, and Luxord dared not bring up the issue again for fear of having Larxene actually _drown_ him in the toilet bowl rather than just give him a quick shove and soak.

"Larx's making me go to prep school," he'd told Xigbar.

"Why?"

"Mum said to."

Luxord had left it at that, and-- being of the sort to respect and unspoken, unwritten line and rule of privacy-- Xigbar left it at that, too. They were two boys on a rotting split rail fence at that point, fast approaching an age of more awkwardness than they could possibly begin to comprehend. So neither touched the other, for to do so would have been to bold and neither had the balls to pride themselves on being bold in public.

If you're fool enough to believe that the story ended there, you might as well stop reading, for you clearly have no basic comprehension of the way true friendship works.

x x x

Some years along, a statistics course was all there was keeping our boys outdoors in subzero temperatures that had crept up and backhanded them from the shadows of autumn, leaving the burning mark of a winter yet to come. Roxas was pissed. And cold. But primarily pissed, as Roxas was frequently pissed because he was a mature sixteen and constantly found himself surrounded by a herd of morons.

"Roxas, you should come to KFC with us."

Take Axel, for example. Charming youth, about six-foot-one-- lean and handsome as the day is long. Yet between his ears there seemed to be a vast void only occasionally filled by the small flicker and sear of some burning gas, frequently visible through his eyes like headlights-- green headlights that gave Roxas a headache if he stared at them too long.

Axel and Roxas were best friends. At least. According to Axel they were. He would later be quoted as having said: "All I need to do is warm the guy up a bit. Then it'll be a snap, man. I mean. Come _on_. I'm _Axel_. Everybody's gotta have just a little bitta Axel in their lives, right?"

But out on the parking lot, Roxas was not needing a 'little bitta Axel' in the slightest. Mouth set in a bleak horizontal line, Roxas blinked. "Why would I go to KFC with you."

Axel grinned and the little bitty flame between his ears spun around through his eyes again. "Because you dig us," he said.

"I don't dig you. I don't dig anybody. Dig's a stupid word anyway." Roxas shifted on his feet and though he would never admit it, he wondered if his words were too bitchy. Too coarse. He didn't want Axel hanging all over him, no, but he could have always just told Axel that the real reason he didn't want to go to KFC was because he was a vegetarian. But then if Axel didn't get the whole vegetarian idea, Axel would stop paying attention to him. And if Axel stopped paying attention to him, Roxas would be bored and hateless. It was, when he got right down to the root of the matter, a very strange, strange dilemma, only solvable by walking away. And that's exactly what Roxas did. Walk away.

And Roxas kept walking away, even when he felt Axel's arm fly around his shoulders and drag him close to the body nest to him, giving him an earful of jacket-clad shoulder. Roxas scowled. Axel talked. "I thought you were into that hippie stuff, yanno? Dig this, dig that," he said.

"Dig is more of a beatnik term," Roxas corrected him lamely. He couldn't think of anything else to say. If that wasn't the case, it was more like he couldn't bring himself to bother thinking of anything else to say.

"Beatniks, hippies-- same, same."

"...You're an idiot."

"An idiot craving chicken. Now then. You coming or not?"

"No."

They walked along like that, between row upon row of cars lining the school's front lot. The sky looked thick and heavy with snow, but no one really gave a damn. The clouds were regarded as they usually were on a Friday afternoon-- boring things that hovered and skittered around in the atmosphere and that were usually too lazy to do much in the way of getting kids out of school when they really didn't want to be there. Axel wrinkled his nose at the sky, turned back towards the clipboard in hand. A survey of cars, which would somehow be made into a statistical analysis.

By comparing the maker of the car, the cleanliness of the car, and the vanity license plate, they would all come to conclusion that their high school primarily consisted of over-priviledged assholes that frequented Starbucks at least twice a day.

Finding this realization something of a letdown, Axel did his best to distract himself with what he usually used as a distraction. Roxas. Pulling the kid even closer to him, he didn't even notice the dull whack that sounded as Roxas' head was once against smacked against his shoulder. "Why so sad?" Axel asked.

Roxas frowned. Wanted to box the kid around the ears with his clipboard. Restrained himself, but couldn't help but sound ridiculously peeved when he said his name. "Axel."

"_Seriously_. Come with us, Roxas. Share a cig. We'll make it worth your while. You can't get 'em anywhere else. Not legally, anyway."

Roxas has shared a cigarette with Axel only once, and while it had been an interesting experience, it was an interesting experience best taken on only once. Judging by Axel's oblivious grin, Roxas figured the guy probably didn't remember that Roxas suffered from a major case of asthma. As said-- smoking? An experience meant only to be experienced _once_.

"I don't want to smoke," Roxas said. "I don't want to get in a car with you. I don't want to eat fried chicken. I want to finish this project and go inside."

"I see." They paused at a lot number-- 237-- at which Roxas fumbled with his pen cap, cursed, continued fumbling, and remained silent when Axel calmly reached down and uncapped the pen. Not another word was said up until Roxas reached the third column in the complex survey chart, at which point Axel (who was, quite tragically, one of the world's nosiest individuals at that point) dutifully pointed out: "...Sheehy is not a car company. It's a car dealer."

Roxas blinked. Scratched angry black marks over the letters. Started walking away again, growing only more dismayed as he realized Axel was still trailing along not half a step behind. "I _know_ Sheehy's not a car company," Roxas said.

"So why'd you put it down in the--"

"**Je**sus, Axel, would you get--!" In a brutal act of rebellion, the ground reared up and consumed Roxas' lower half, thereby demoting his complex function of step-step-stepping across the asphalt to a glorious grit-eating face plant. In simple terms, he tripped. But what a most magnificent tripping it was. So magnificent, in fact, that it caught the attention of every bystander-- innocent and otherwise-- and there was a collective moment in which the world, personified, reared up, reared back, and let loose a terrific "HAH!" sound that reverberated in the ears of ever mammalian creature roaming the plains of the blue marble in space.

Axel, completely oblivious to most of what had just happened, busied himself flagging down one of said bystanders while Roxas cursed and bitched and moaned and picked the little bitty asphalt bits from his skin. "_Zex_ion, my _man_!" Axel hollered, flapping his arms and crowing something wild.

Zexion blinked. He focused and zoomed in on one tall freak yelling his name and one short sack of bones eating school parking lot. Coming to the conclusion that the situation at hand might be mildly interesting, Zexion strolled over, clipboard in hand and scarf looped around his neck, only trailing over one shoulder when he bent over just so, blinked just so, and asked the sack of bones-- "...Roxas?

"He likes dirt. You know. He 'digs' dirt." Axel cackled gleefully, smacking Roxas hard on the back when the boy had regained his footing. "Haha, Roxas digs dirt like a hoe," he rattled on. "A big ol' _hoe-bag_."

"Ugh," was the only remotely intelligent thing Roxas had to say in response to this.

Ever desperate to recruit more people for his fried chicken excursions, Axel, arms spread and mouth set in that know-nothing smile, said, "Say Zexion. Would you call us friends?"

It took Zexion about five seconds to raise on eyebrow and drawl, "... ...Peers, yes. Friends? ...No."

There was a cheerful little silence before Roxas could be heard muttering a quiet, "_Burn_."

"Fuck you," Axel grumbled, hoping Roxas would somehow magically trip on ground again. Alas, no luck in that department. Heaving something of a sigh, he made to turn back to his current conquest-- "Really Ze..."--only to find him gone, gone, gone. Somewhere in the distance, zipping through the car lot. Axel glowered. Tried to ignore the sound of Roxas choking on his own laughter. "Jackass. God, this whole damn place is _crawling_ with jackasses."

"_Tell_ me about it."

Enter Demyx, another of Axel's cronies and Roxas' vice-of-the-moment. Frankly, Roxas couldn't figure out why he found the guy so damn likeable. He was even denser than Axel, though rather than having a flickery little flame behind his eyeballs; he had a dense mass that was completely and utterly impenetrable. Try as he might, Roxas could never quite make it through the mass. And try as he might, he couldn't quite figure out why he even wanted to try to get through in the first place. As with Axel, it was a curious predicament, but rather than using escape as a method of addressing the issue, Roxas frequently employed a different, but equally noble method: that of silence.

Turning and burning and placing his hands on his hips (and dropping the clipboard in the process), Axel smirked. "You know, your brilliant wit is only exceeded by your good looks."

Roxas seethed (silently) and (silently) wished he could have been witty enough to come up with that statement (silently) and say it (...also silently.)

"Well, _you're_ a poet now, aren't you?" Demyx asked. The two had a brief face-off of a rather lame and uneventful sort before Demyx burst into a chorus of decidedly unmanly nature and punched Axel jokingly on the shoulder. "So! Axel!" Punch, shove, bear-hug strong enough to send Axel teetering a bit as he clamped onto Demyx's arms momentarily engulfing his head, trying to keep some sort of stability. "How-doin'?" Demyx asked.

Axel smirked—jerked a thumb off to the side where Roxas was fiddling idly with the pen tied to the clipboard. "Living it up with the king of all things dead and miserable here," Axel said. "_Lord_, this kid's a royal _drag_ of anything and everything."

Demyx turned to Roxas and shot him a warm _'Axel is full of shit and you shouldn't let whatever he says bother you'_ smile, but Roxas didn't care quite as much about the implications of the smile as he did about the smile itself. If an expression could be bottled and kept, Roxas would have done so right at that very point. And while he tried to work up a smile of his own, Demyx got a good, solid gander of his paper, at which point he politely said, "Sheehy's not a--"

"I know…" Roxas sighed as Demyx turned back to Axel, once more clapping the redhead on the shoulder and bouncing around on his feet a little while he did so, while he talked mile a minute and while Roxas willed some spine into his back so he could not sound like a brainless oaf when it mattered most.

"Axel, tomorrow, concert, you goin'?" Demyx asked. Bouncy, bounce as he said it. The bouncing made the syllables come out in bits and pieces-- 'Ax-el, tonight, con-cert, you-goin'?'-- and Roxas wanted to stab himself in the eyes and ears so he wouldn't have to witness the cuteness that was Demyx any longer. He figured-- _Maybe if I wrote song lyrics, he would like me. He likes things like that. He likes songs. He likes_--

Axel. "Can't, man." He beamed and Roxas felt his gut groan and huddle up in a deep dark corner in the pit of his body. "I got a date."

There was another silence, equally as cheerful as the first, yet twice as long and only broken when a breeze blew in and sent Roxas to shivering and clacking his teeth together helplessly.

Slapping one hand on his thigh, Demyx let out a stream of awkward laughter-- "Hah hah?"-- and-- "...**Ha**_ha_! That was a laugh. Seriously. Dude. Concert. I gotta get you reserves from Leon if you're going. Riku tours here, like, once every lifetime."

"That must make him pretty old. He held up well."

"**Ax**-el. **Je**-sus. Are you coming?"

_Axel and Jesus are two very different things_, Roxas wanted to say. And then, hurriedly, his brain followed up with-- _Wait, is that even witty enough? Or is that just stupid? I mean, duh, Axel's not Jesus. He's like. Missing a beard. And holiness. But the idea of Axel being like Jesus is pretty funny. But if Demyx doesn't even think about it that way..._

And then the moment zipped by and Roxas was left waving a metaphorical, metaphysical farewell at his chance to be smart and impressive.

Meanwhile, there was something of a tiff going on without him, Axel actually looking somewhat genuinely annoyed and Demyx looking truly and honestly confused and perplexed. "I _told_ you, man!" Axel was saying. "Date! Me!"

"Oh, I thought you were joking." Demyx blinked. Turned for backup. "Didn't you think he was joking, Roxas?" Demyx asked.

"I thought he was high," Roxas said. Almost kicked himself in the face for saying it-- _Goddammit, that was retarded!_

Yet Demyx seemed to consider this statement a serious possibility. He leaned in closer, peering into Axel's eyes for some telltale state of... highness. "Hmm..."

"I'm not joking and I'm _not_ high. How the hell is that so hard to get? You think I can't get dates like... like _that_?" To define 'that,' Axel snapped his fingers-- one snap from each hand and one angry as all get-out glare from each eye. Unimpressed by the display, Roxas just shrugged, toed the curbside with a sneaker, and chewed thoughtfully on his bottom lip before granting the guy a response of any kind.

"Eh," he said. "Sometimes I like to think humanity isn't totally devoid of common sense."

"You know, I hope you get recruited by the army so you have to have some jackass scream in your face day after day after **day** and strip you of your goddamn mouth that keeps spewing such utter _crap_."

Demyx turned towards Zexion almost like they were friends, almost like he was actually confiding in an old buddy, an old amigo when he said it-- "_Impressive_ how they haven't killed each other yet, huh?"

"I guess." And Zexion simply shrugged, turned, and walked away.

"He has such a nice ass, doesn't he?" Axel commented.

"So does Roxas," Demyx said. He grinned and laughed a little and made nothing of the statement in the slightest.

Roxas blinked and found himself forced into making a serious effort to close his gaping mouth. "Err... th-thanks, Dem."

"Why you're welcome! What a prince, huh?"

Axel seemed to consider this for a moment, but also seemed to have more pressing issues at hand that absolutely needed addressing. For example: "…Do I not have a nice ass?"

"It's pretty bony, man," said Demyx.

"And square," said Roxas.

"WHAT?"

"Well, _**I**_ would have to disagree!"

The ego-boost came in the form of a scrawny girl who was suddenly latched to Axel's back, impish little grin on her face and scarf all in a tangle around her neck. Axel barely even noticed the added weight or the compliment she had deliberately doled out for his benefit. He just sighed, peered over his shoulder at the head nestled there and gave a slight wave.

"Hey Kairi," he said.

"Hi guys! You all done?"

As Kairi hopped down from her Axel-perch, Axel seemed to make a considerable attempt at not pondering over the quality of his own ass. Clearing his throat, he nodded. "Yup. _Finally_. It's fucking freezing out here."

The four of them started off at a slow amble, making for the school's side entrance. The only one of them shivering was Roxas, who was still feeling the near brush of death he'd had with the face-planting incident only moments ago. Meanwhile, Kairi was babbling on about the project-- diligent student she was-- and only managed to shake Roxas from his self-pitying stupor when she looped an arm around his shoulder, asking, "Did any of you get space number twenty-seven? I couldn't find it."

He handed her his clipboard and was secretly glad for the warmth her arm brought. "Here."

Kairi smiled, thanked him, and began to jot down some numbers onto her own paper before pausing. "Hey Roxas, uh, Sheehy's not a--"

"Shut up."

Axel perked up, pointing off in a seemingly random direction at a seemingly random figure making its way towards them through the lot. "Hey, it's--"

"XIGGY!" A flailing Demyx knocked Axel straight in the nose.

"Oww."

"XIG-BAAAR!"

Since last seen in his teenybopper years of yore by yours truly, Xigbar had undergone quite the dramatic change. Mostly, this could be seen in the unfortunate development of a few ribbons of prematurely graying hair. As though trying to make up for a loss of color, Xigbar must have come up with the idea of growing it long, just to prove he was not balding as well. The black patch still covered one eye, though he no longer seemed to give the thing a second thought. Gone were the days of self-conscious pitying and worrying and well-built Xigbar had taken place of the scrawny, puny thing he'd once been.

But back to the events of the time: Demyx's excitement to see Xigbar and Roxas' quiet, brooding jealousy at that very fact. A quiet, brooding jealousy that absolutely no one noticed or cared about.

"Demyyyx..." Xigbar wiggled his hands, mocking Demyx as he put on an overly cheerful face. The two were good friends, but they had never made it much past that point. Demyx was of a curious sort who could shift between being excruciatingly happy and unbelievably insightful in the span of two seconds. Xigbar needed consistency and consistency was just something Demyx couldn't provide.

Not only that, but Demyx was often loud.

"XIGBAR, XIGBAR! OVER HERE!"

"Dude, Dem, chill. You're going to rupture something." Demyx greeted Xigbar in similar fashion to the way he'd greeted Axel—a few beatings on an arm, but nothing quite so serious as a killer hug attack.

"Like hell," he said. "Concert tomorrow, you going? Axel's bailing. He's got a date."

"With who?"

"Luxord."

Xigbar blinked. "_WHA_?"

"Joking."

"Seriously man, who's the guy?" Xigbar's attention had turned towards Axel then—clearly confused, much as Demyx had been, and much to Axel's growing annoyance. "Or... girl?"

"None of your goddamn business. Nice hair, Xig. It's gotten whiter since I've seen you last."

"Eh." Xigbar was well prepared to blow this comment off with a huff and a ruffle of Axel's hair. It was just that the ruffling of Axel's hair almost landed Xigbar with his hand glued to Axel's head. He blinked, yelped, and tore his hand away. "Stupid shi-- Eww, Ax! _Man_!"

"What?"

"Your hair's frickin' _disgusting_, man!"

"_What_?"

Demyx, ever the curious one, gave Axel's head a careful prodding. After giving the matter some thought, he nodded. "Yeah," he said, "your hair's like... fermenting a little, Axel. ...On your head." And after this, he felt inclined to repeat himself, just for the emphasis and just for the sheer amusement he gleaned from it. "It's fermenting. On your _head_."

"I wash it every other day. You're all just crazy. Hah! Losers. Cra-azy jealous." But anyone could see Axel was having second thoughts. Not just about one thing, but about many things. Maybe he should change his shampoo? His shower schedule? Was it really all that bad?

"Jealous of your square ass and bad hair?" Demyx snorted. Axel felt a little bit crushed.

"...Roxas, is my ass really square?"

To this there was no response. There was just the door of the school swinging shut, Axel left alone and blinking in the cold.

Silence.

"I _mean_ it, dammit! Is my ass really square?!"

x x x

School is a very boring pastime. As such, it is rarely considered a pastime, but between you and me and the grand scheme of things, that is what the great system of education technically is. Unless your parental unit physically, bodily escorts you onto the premises on a daily basis—physically, bodily drags you from one subject to the next—it is sadly, tragically, a pastime. A pastime brainwashed into the lot of us as being requirement, perhaps, but it is something we choose to participate in.

At least, _most_ of us choose to participate in it.

Axel, for one, liked to sleep through most of his classes. This was largely due to the fact that at home, in his bedroom, he was a closeted insomniac. This is to say that he was an insomniac nowhere else—but whet it came to Axel being in his room, he was undoubtedly suffering from insomnia. Mostly, this was because he found many things in his room distracting, and therefore greatly preferred engaging with said distracting things over sleeping. The most distracting things he possessed were his stereo, his computer, his TV, and his Rubix cube. The least distracting things he possessed were his piggy bank (which held only safety pins and pocket lint), half a pair of scissors (the other half of which he spent many long hours pondering the loss of), and an empty box of matches.

While Axel spent his days sleeping through class, Roxas spent them diligently taking notes. He was determined not to end up like his supposed best friend—held back a grade and seriously deranged—and therefore flung himself headlong into his studies. This isn't to say that he was a bookworm. He had soul—it just followed closely behind his intense focus on his schoolwork. In his room were very similar items of distraction to Axel's—a computer, a stereo, and an old 1500 piece puzzle set which only had 1499 pieces in the box. Roxas was not an insomniac. He got done what needed to get done and let himself be distracted with whatever time was left over.

Demyx had his guitar. His drum set. His keyboard. His recording studio. His collection of strangely shaped, strangely comfortable pillows, his grandmother's old sewing machine he had coerced his uncle into turning into a complicated yet intriguing lava-lamp setup, and a stack of CDs stretching from the floor of his bedroom to his ceiling.

Demyx was not a very good student. We will not analyze this further.

During his school days, Xigbar drifted well along the worn and steady path of the boy of the in-between nature. He paid attention when the teacher or the lecture was particularly interesting, and otherwise he allowed his mind to wander where it pleased, so long as he could answer questions when called on (which he never was) and at least pass any pop quizzes (of which there were none.) All in all, Xigbar considered himself to be an average student. He made decent grades, but never quite poured himself into it enough to get noticed for it. At least one C+ always kept him from making the A-B honor roll and his teachers never came to expect much of anything remarkable from him.

He performed at his grade level and a teacher's time was best spent elsewhere—with those struggling or those overachieving. For Xigbar, there was nothing to do but be bored.

In his room was the standard needed to get by. His bed, an old beat-up loveseat he and Demyx had rescued from a curbside in the tenth grade, a desk, a desk lamp, a bookshelf, another shelf of random junk, and a mini-fridge. Seeing as mini-fridges have never really provided anyone with hours upon hours of amusement, it could be said, then, that there was not much in Xigbar's room to distract him. And yet somehow or another, he found distraction where he could, be it staring at the ceiling or staring off into space, letting his mind perform its same old routine, wandering in a field. In the Swiss Alps. With some woman spinning in circles singing about hills and whatnot. That was precisely where Xigbar's mind was 99 of the time.

He hated it.

It was after school-- after he felt slightly inclined to pay attention to his teachers' lectures and before he felt slightly inclined to pay attention to his parents' lectures-- that he found it tolerable. During such hours, he spent his time with friends, most of which had interesting things to do. On the particular day we're at in the story, Demyx had headed home to practice—for what, Xigbar wasn't sure, but he dared not ask. Kairi had gone to pick up a new pair of mittens because hers had a hole in the thumb, Zexion had muttered something that was going to be keeping him preoccupied for some time, and Axel was staying after school with Roxas to help him on an art assignment.

Why on earth anyone would stay after for help in art class, Xigbar, again, was unsure. But of all the options laid out before him, that one seemed to be the most promising, so he stuck with it. Little did he know.

"Xigbar. Stop _moving_, for crying out loud."

"My nose itches."

"It's called self control. Pretend you're meditating or some shit like that. Act like you're Buddha."

"Yanno, I got this _gut feeling_ Buddha didn't sit on really uncomfortable stools in the—"

Axel growled and waved a clay tool around in a rather menacing fashion. "Goddamn, stop moving!"

Xigbar sighed. "This is the last time I ever do anything for you."

"It's not for me, it's for Roxas."

"So why are _you_ playing with clay?"

"Dude. It's free clay. Roxas' flippy, dippy teacher left him a crapload." Axel shrugged, turning back to the lump in front of him, which actually was starting to take on a rather decent appearance. Granted, it was an extravagated look at Xigbar. Or at least, he hoped it was. He hoped his nose wasn't that large or angular. Axel was speaking again, though no one could be sure it was to himself or to anyone in particular as he said, "Free's one of my favorite four-letter words. Didin'tcha know?"

"No, can't say I did."

Shaking his head in Xigbar's general direction, Axel set down his tools, dipped his hands in a bucket of water, and wiped them on his jeans. Leaning over to his left, he peered over Roxas' shoulder—Roxas, who had been pretty much silent during their session up to that point. "How's it going, Roxas?" Axel asked. Then he saw Roxas' clay. And then he immediately regretted sounding so cheerful when asking the kid how it was going. "Oh," he said. "_Er_."

"You're supposed to be helping me." Roxas stabbed the clay idly with a needle tool, pause, studied it closely, and then stabbed it again.

"I _am_ helping," Axel said. "I'm the over presiding sprit of helpfulness in this situation. What's the problem?"

"What does it look like?" Roxas asked.

"What does it _look_ like?" Axel puckered his lips, nodded thoughtfully, and turned his attention back to Roxas' lump of clay. There was a certain balance to the right side of the face that reminded him of Xigbar. That gaping hole might be symbolic of the unknown eye behind the eye patch. Axel was nodding again and stated his conclusion with the utmost precision and clarity. "Well," he said, "it _looks_ a little like a pineapple that got shot with an AK, that's what it damn well looks like."

"No, Axel, I mean what do you think my problem is? I don't know how to work with this stuff. It's stupid."

"Yeah, well, why do you _need_ to anyway?" Xigbar asked from his perch in the center of the room.

When Roxas didn't respond, Axel took the liberty of doing it for him. "Gainsborough gave him a D on his last project," he told Xigbar. To confirm this fact, Roxas just sighed—the deep and heavy sigh of one who tired, but fails miserably each and every time.

"…Wow. That's… really harsh. And I heard she was an easy grader," Xigbar muttered.

Axel smiled. "She is."

Roxas didn't. "I just suck."

Nodding, Axel turned his attention back to Roxas and Roxas' situation. If Xigbar was a bastard of any means, he would've rolled his eyes and called his friend out on it, but he figured it was just one more thing best left alone. He wasn't about to be one of those people who just can't keep their sticky hands out of the lives of their friends. It was something, Xigbar told himself, he would avoid at all costs. So he sat still and quiet while Axel explained to Roxas: "Basically, yeah, I mean, okay, so you suck a little. But it's nothing that can't be fixed. Here, see? You're clay's getting dry. You just gotta keep it damp. But not _too_ damp. Like, uh, like… like apple-damp."

"What the hell does that mean?" Xigbar asked. For there were certain things and certain events that just required input, and apple-dampness was one of them. But Axel just wouldn't seem to have it.

"Shut up, you. I'm talking to Roxas." At this, Xigbar had to roll his eyes. But he did shut up. At least, for a little while.

"What's apple-damp?" Roxas asked this time. Needless to say, Axel did his best to explain once more.

"You know when you bite into an apple? How it's kinda wet inside?" he asked.

"Apple-damp is too damp for clay, man. It'd be mud in his hands," Xigbar said.

"Well what kinda apples are you eating?"

"...Fuji."

"Well **I'm** talking about the Red Delicious kind, so just keep your pants on." Turning back to Roxas, Axel put on his nice voice again. "Do you eat Red Delicious apples, Roxas?"

"No, I eat McIntosh."

Axel blinked. "…Who the hell eats McIntosh apples?"

"…Roxas?" Xigbar suggested.

"No, _aside_ from him. _No one_ eats McIntosh apples."

"My mom uses Granny Smith apples, but only when she makes apple pie," Roxas added, trying to defend himself, but all to no avail.

"Your mom's apple pie must taste like puke," Axel declared. "Why does no one use Red Delicious anymore?"

At this, Roxas really had to pull off the gloves. Take down the walls. Lay waste to Axel's naïve apple notions. "Red Delicious apples just aren't good for baking," Roxas told him. "McIntosh apples are sort of like an all-purpose apple. Actually, they're really good when you make applesauce, because they're soft and all, but my mom likes her apple pie kinda tart. Rome Beauty apples are technically the best for baking." Inside, Roxas was pleased with how he had finally managed to one-up Axel. It was about time. But it was only a moment after this satisfaction had sunk in that it was ripped away from him once again. Both Xigbar and Axel were staring at him all too intently. As though he had sprouted a second head or some other disastrous thing. Fearing the worst, Roxas went, "…What?"

"That's the most I've ever heard you say in one conversation," Axel said.

"Well, _this_ is fascinating," said Xigbar, meaning that what he really wanted to do was drive his skull against the chalkboard and have Roxas use the carnage as an abstract sculpture. Performance art, perhaps. Either way, it would mean Xigbar would never have to sit in on another conversation centering on apples and their various types and purposes.

Axel was trying to get on his case-- "Like you know anything about apples!"—but Xigbar had already gone. He could see his mind, then, drifting slowly out his right ear, floating past his eyes, and propelling itself towards the room's only window. Once it got out, Xigbar knew, there would be no saving him. It was all Swiss Alps and everything downhill from there. Yet as his mind drifted closer to the window, it was the window that brought his mind back. Not so much the window, maybe, but what lay beyond the window.

Luxord, since last discussed in depth, had grown much as Xigbar had. He was lean, muscular, attractive, blonde, and (as Larxene had feared) rather charismatic. Everyone loved him and, as a general rule, he was apt to love everyone in return before hating them. It was his philosophy in life that you should surround yourself with friends so that when an enemy comes up, there's a fairly good buffer between you and him, leaving you enough time to make a run for it. Aside from this philosophy was the philosophy that declared that strip poker was not fun unless played with a giant group of people. Yet that is a matter best left discussed on another day.

Regardless of philosophies and the like, Luxord was straining to peer in through the window, flagging Xigbar down and letting out a holler for him to hurry up and get a move on because it was already quarter-to-four.

It was Thursday—Xigbar had almost forgotten. Thursdays were his days spent with Luxord. And on that particular day, they were to engage in one of their favorite pastimes. It was not a pastime forced upon them by the brainwash of society, not a pastime passed off as a requirement, not a pastime of which either of them tired of very quickly. It was, quite possibly, the one habit they had both picked up and shared over the years.

And it was, quite possibly, the only thing that held them together in even the slightest way as friends.

That pastime _was_, ladies and gentlemen, the fine, _respectable_ art of **rummaging**. And so, that Thursday afternoon, leaving a distraught Roxas and an agitated Axel in his wake, Xigbar set off with Luxord in Luxord's car. They were driving, unbeknownst to them, to the rummaging event that would forever change their lives.

If that doesn't sound at least somewhat foreboding, I don't know what does.

(x) (x) (x)


	2. Oddballing

**How To Do Nothing At All**

'Oddballing'

Luxord drove a Saab, and he loved his Saab in much the same way any boy of normal disposition would love a puppy. He bathed the Saab, fed the Saab, walked the Saab, and certainly, were it a socially acceptable practice, Luxord would have slept with the Saab at the foot of his bed as well. He never cared that Saabs were supposed to be girly cars. Whenever a passenger of his Saab-baby would harass him about it, he would simply turn on his smooth stereo system, roll back the tinted sunroof, and caress the leather interior with whatever free hand was available. Ninety-nine percent of the time, it was enough to shut up any pesky Saab hater that might burden Luxord with their presence.

The one percent of the time it didn't shut someone up, it was because that someone was Xigbar. And Xigbar drove his mother's old '97 Honda Civic that smelled strangely of week-old artichokes and shoe polish—a smell for which he never could devise a crafty, proper excuse. Though it probably goes without saying, Xigbar greatly resented Luxord and his beloved Saab. He didn't understand how—being the wealthier of the two of them—he somehow ended up with the crap-mobile and Luxord ended up with the babe-mobile. It just didn't make sense—up until Xigbar discovered that Larxene drove a Thunderbird and her hubby drove a Jag.

Such discoveries were the decisive factors in determining why Xigbar viewed the world as horribly unfair and unjust, but all of this is just meaningless fact in a world of subjective notion.

Luxord was pondering one such notion rather deeply during their drive to the supposed wreckage of the old warehouse. Xigbar could tell his friend was deep in the land of Ponder because the radio's volume was a decent notch or two below the max safety level and the sunroof was firmly in place.

"What's on your mind, Lux?" Xigbar asked this, not because he particularly cared what Luxord was so torn up about—he would talk about it when he would talk about it, after all—but simply because it seemed like the polite thing to do. …That was a lie. In actuality, Luxord seemed to _actually_ have been willing Xigbar to ask on some telepathic level, for no sooner had the words left Xigbar's mouth was Luxord already responding.

"It's just that—well—now see, Xigbar." It was obviously something important. Luxord's hand moved to turn the volume down even more and Xigbar's mind actually perked into a state of semi-consciousness and concern. "It's like this," Luxord said. "We haven't been real regular about rummaging for some time, I guess."

"Yeah," Xigbar said. And he knew why.

"And you know why."

"Yep." '_Why'_ was also knows as Small, Dark, and Busty—who was also, _also_ known as Luxord's Girlfriend. Xigbar had seen her all of two times in his life, though she and Lux had supposedly been together for somewhere around, oh, say, _twenty-eight months_. She was a supporter of the plaid mini-skirt trend, coupled with black knee highs, platform boots, and a smooth layer of lip gloss that seemed perpetually present and also seemed to have a strange scent of caramel covered peaches, of all things. She was also beautiful, but that was beside the point. Especially because the next words out of Luxord's mouth were:

"Well, we split."

"Oh."

"Random, right?"

"Well, I guess, man. Uh. Sure?"

"Yeah. Well. About it, see. I just figure…" And this must have been what Luxord was laboring over thought-wise, because his glib gabbing mouth seemed all caught up in itself, like even the mouth was still trying to think things through. …Weird, but possible, Xigbar supposed.

"I just figure," Luxord was saying, "that, you know, I mean. It's like this. We've got maybe four, five—I don't really know how many, I'm guessing here, you can tell and all—four, five months left in each other's grand old company." At this, Xigbar couldn't help but smile and kind of snort into his hand. "And what I'm _thinking_," Luxord continued, "is that we should just—" his lips puckered together in a series of 'pop' noises while he looked for the right word and phrase… "We should just go and—and have a good old time and… and _screw_ ladies."

Xigbar promptly blinked, squinted his one visible eye, and went, "Huh?"

"No, no, I meant, screw ladies, like, as in, _forget_ them. Not _sex_ them." Luxord threw a sideways look at Xigbar, who was still kind of ogle-eyed. "Perverted piece of work."

"Not half as much as you. And anyway. Hang on. Don't tell me you broke up with that chick just because you're… what, _nostalgic_ or something, Lux?" The way Xigbar asked it made Luxord feel guilty, though he couldn't figure out how, why, or from where the feeling came from.

"No, no, it's not just that!" Luxord snapped, probably with more force than was really necessary. He sighed at the silence, said, "No, _not_ that, Xig. I just. You know. Girls aren't all their cracked up to be."

"You can say that again."

"Girls aren't all their cracked up to be?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Well. It's. They're not. It's very rare." Somewhere, Luxord had a point. He was sure of it. "It's hard to find them and not find an annoying one. I mean. The pretty ones are everywhere. But they're either dumb, squeaky, bubbly, giddy, globby, whoreish, slutty, skanky, whiney, shallow, needy, grabby, touchy, feely, or gay."

Xigbar blinked. "Go back to 'globby'," he said, "I'm still hung up on that one. What the hell's it mean to be goddamn _globby_?"

"Never mind it! The point is: it's hard!"

Xigbar considered all this for a moment. "And by 'gay' I'm assuming you don't mean they're just so darned happy to see you all the time."

"No, Xigbar, by gay I mean they crave women's breasts more than I do."

"Well that's a bold and questionable statement to make, Luxord. You sure you don't want to retract that?"

"Fine, I retract it. You're absolutely impossible and are striking me as a complete and total bastard at this moment and yet for some crazed, half-assed reason, I just can't see myself kicking you out of my car and into the dirt. And that both disgusts and disturbs me."

But Xigbar wouldn't let it rest—couldn't _possibly_ let it rest because what Luxord had essentially done was take the bad habits and broken Thursdays of the past twenty-eight months and turned them on their heads, little metaphorical feet dangling and waving in the air. It didn't make sense. Where'd little Busty go wrong? Xigbar _had_ to know. He said, "So let's see if I've got it straight here. You wanted to leave your girl so you could… what? Like, spend quality time with me or something?"

Luxord didn't say anything, and Xig actually sort of found himself wishing he wasn't such an ass and hadn't actually phrased that like quality time was the making of a felony.

"What's so wrong with that, huh?"

"Well. Nothing. I mean." Xigbar shrugged. "Last year of high school. Little late to be rekindling childhood friendships, is all."

"It's hardly rekindling!" Luxord was torn between wanting to focus on traffic and wanting to pay attention to Xigbar. It was rather hard, he was discovering, to make a point while staring obsessively into the taillights of the car in front of you. "There's no rekindling involved!" He said it again for emphasis as he nearly rear-ended his fellow driver. The truck ahead honked—the Saab squeaked back.

"Goddamn bastards," hissed Luxord. Clearing his throat, he started again. "There's _nooo_ rekindling required, Xig. We never stopped being friends!"

"It's called stagnation."

"It's called _pessimism_, you great big buffoon, and if you'd cease it for maybe five minutes, you might have a chance at a more positive outlook on life without any of this rekindling _bullshit_ you speak of."

Xigbar blinked. 

"And anyway," muttered Luxord, "I see you as much as I can. Are you comatose on Thursdays, or does one seventh of the every week just casually slip through your mind like curdled yogurt?"

"Need I _remind_ you, _buddy_," Xigbar interjected, emphasis on the 'buddy' and strain on the seatbelt as he leaned forward. He had the benefit of not needing his attention directed elsewhere, so while Luxord fumbled with the turn signal and rearview mirror, Xigbar obliterated his argument with a verbal hand grenade. "We haven't rummaged, dined, lazed, or blabbed our dumbass mouths off in the past three weeks, thanks to Busty."

"_Why_ do you always _call_ her that?"

"Because. Her tits. They're like. Fuckin'…" Xigbar's hands rolled outwards. He searched for a word. And the word came to him. "Fuckin'… two-ton marshmallows."

Ignoring the fact that Xigbar's description was painfully honest and partially true, Luxord promptly triple-parked the Saab and needlessly announced: "WELL, HERE WE ARE."

"That's a subject change if I ever saw one."

"Now listen, Xig, you know I've been busy. We've all been busy! College applications! Football games! Corndog stands! School fundraisers! Earning a letter for a jacket! Writing papers in desperate attempts to excel to the level that your instructor actually knows your name and doesn't call you anything all that humiliating, like Zelda, Zimbob, Zoe, or Zach."

"Ignoring the fact that Zach is a perfectly common name, Lux, yeah, you're totally right." Xigbar slid out of the car and closed the door behind him. Luxord was still fumbling with his seatbelt and cursing an apparently off day. Where was that damned charisma of his?

It might very well—in answer to Luxord's question of mental anguish and strife—have been hiding in a corner of his subconscious, because Luxord rarely witnessed Xigbar as annoyed, wound-up, fixated, or driven towards any conversation they'd had in a long, long while. The last time he'd been that involved, it had been over criticizing Busty's posture while surfing, during the first, last, and _only_ trip the three of them—Xigbar, Busts, and Lux—would ever take to the beach.

And that was _years_ ago.

During such times of peculiar confrontation, Luxord had discovered that Xigbar was actually capable of heckling, nagging, and ceaselessly pursuing a topic until his views and points were so driven into your head, you actually wound up convinced they'd been your own all along and you couldn't help but agree with Xig. It was a very peculiar skill, and the world was really just rather lucky that Xigbar—in spite of such gift—was, ultimately, a rather laid-back person ninety days out of a hundred.

But apparently it was the hundredth day, and apparently Xigbar had it in for Luxord, of all people, and his petty notion that they were merry as clams, happy as oysters, and just as close as two friendly, wrinkly, strange-tasting peas in a chipper little pod.

"And _why_," Xigbar continued—Luxord winced, "are we always _rummaging_ anyway? Why can't we ever go to KFC or, hell, fuck, damn, I don't know, something public, ordinary, and mundane?"

"Oh, I dunno, Xiggy. Rummaging is sometimes mundane."

"You know what I mean."

"I know what you mean."

"This is a burnt down store. We can't even shop at this store _because_ it is burnt down. And yet here we are." Xigbar's face pulled a strange move, twisting and tugging itself into a frown, his random right dimple on the downside. "What," he asked, "do you do on all Thursdays when I don't see you?"

"Come _on_, Xig."

So Xigbar did come on. He followed right along beside Luxord out of habit as the two of them ventured forth over neon _Caution!_ tape and into the wreckage. Around them was the smell of burnt plastic, charred metal, and coals, but that seemed to nothing to deter Luxord, who had at least planned accordingly and donned a pair of black, grungy jeans for the occasion. Xigbar's own denims were, of course, bound for ruin, but he didn't really care. What he did care about, though, was the fact that Luxord was still oblivious, still eager and still positive. How on earth someone could pull off that attitude constantly was completely beyond Xigbar. He could barely bring himself to be openly optimistic when forced into it by Luxord. How the hell could you do it on a routine _basis_?

Xigbar shuddered at the thought.

It wasn't, might I add, that he was a pessimist, as Luxord so wrongly thought, judged, and assumed. Rather, it was just that Xigbar was not the sort to assume much of anything about a given situation—be it a good or bad outcome. He knew, from years of experiencing the world as it was, that most situations _had_ outcomes. …And that was, really, about _all_ he knew. He might have been cursed, he might very well have had the worst luck in the world, but he would never have known. And the _reason_ he would never have known is because he would simply never think enough to observe a pattern of reactions dumped upon his existence by whatever hand it was controlling such things.

Things happened, period. That was the sum of it all.

His complaint about always rummaging as a source of interaction between himself and Luxord was the only strange attitude Xigbar was exhibiting that day. The rest? That was normal. Xigbar was always picking on Busty, Xigbar was always ridiculing the Saab, and Xigbar was always mocking Luxord just as Luxord was always mocking Xigbar. But for Xigbar to express the slightest dislike towards rummaging—_that_ was new. And for Luxord, _that_ was frightening.

Luxord had been given enough time to regain his bearings and come up with a thought and a couple words that seemed to tie nicely into this thought of his. He said, "Now look here, it might just seem like a mattress warehouse that burned down… and really, that's _exactly_ what it is… **but**. Think of what the flurry of dancing flames left behind. Isn't that why we do it anyway? Climbing through the ruins, picking up the pieces, sorting through the shit for the gold. Tell me, Xig—isn't that _it_?"

"Why are you such a goddamn fruit?" Xigbar asked instead.

With a tsk, a twist, and a flip of the wrist, Luxord shot him down. "Down boy," he said, "let's not get feisty. You'll be warm and asleep in your bed in just about, oh, say, one hour and forty-three minutes, providing for moderate traffic and a large order of fries from McDonald's on the trip back." The sun was bright, even in winter like they were, and it caught Luxord's hair so the mass of the thing lit up like a light bulb, glowing and burning and strolling across the wreckage site on a magic pair of legs and body. "You with me, Xig?"

Xigbar blinked, wondered some wonders about light bulbs, and nodded. He nodded not because he was necessarily 'with' Luxord, but simply because he wasn't quite sure what else to do. He'd lost whatever drive he had in his pursuit of the argument against the guy and, frankly, he couldn't quite remember what had gotten him so riled up to begin with. He should have been bouncing with joy at the prospect of a single, companionable Luxord now free whenever he was free—now able to bond and chill and hang whenever he was able. The idea was, at the end of it all, an appealing one.

So why had it bothered him so much?

_Oh. That's right. Because Luxord is being a dipshit and not paying attention to the fact that things have been sucking and our friendship ain't quite what it used to be and I am—really—okay with that._ Xigbar called to mind Demyx, Axel, Roxas, Zexion, and Kairi. He had more than enough friends. Luxord had become a shadow of a thing, and it could only be thought of as annoying when he assumed he was still the point around which all Xigbar's life swung and spun in place.

Xigbar sighed and drew to a halt. Luxord was some ways up ahead, already pulling this, that, and the other aside, to see what lay beneath. But he noticed Xigbar's pause and he lifted his head, shot the guy a look, a frown.

"You know, for someone who does absolutely nothing in their spare time, you most certainly do have… uh. No energy. At all."

Xigbar shrugged, stooped down, and picked something up, holding it out to Luxord.

"This cool?" He had, in his hands, the melted remnants of a plastic cup. If you held it at a forty-two degree angle, it looked rather like a profile of a seventy-four year old Shirley Temple in drag.

Obviously failing to recognize the beauty of aged Hollywood glitz, Luxord gave his response quick and succinct. "No," he said. "Not really. It's not." So Xigbar tossed the cup over his shoulder and went back to thinking and talking and kicking burnt crap around.

"Yeah. I dunno… Trouble sleeping, I guess," he was saying distractedly.

"Nightmares?" Luxord asked. He was kicking around the ruins of a bathroom and came upon a warped plastic container, which he curiously prodded at for a few seconds before realizing it was designed for feminine waste disposal. Although 'EW' is not at all what he said, what he actually said was not, is not, and never will _be_ very appropriate or politically correct. So for the sake of appropriateness and political correction, Luxord conveniently enough said a perfectly PG-rated "Ew" before dropping the thing to the ground and twitching his hands around madly, wiping them against his pants until the skin felt good, raw, and clean again.

But about nightmares.

"No, not nightmares, man," Xigbar said. "More like… like sleeping is kinda… _boring_."

"Boring? I would think that sleep would be a regular rollercoaster ride for someone like you."

"You would think wrong…"

If there was one thing Luxord had retained over the years—aside from his very yellow hair, very British accent, and very flirty, scathing, creepy wit (which assumed all three forms at the same time, mind you), it must have been his tendency—his urgency—to jump from one topic to the next, much in the same way sugar-gliders go about their daily business. _Sugar gliding_. From sugar tree to sugar tree, never mind that sugar does not, in fact, grow on trees.

"_Heeere_ we go. See this?" Luxord was then wielding half of the innards of a spring box, safe, good metal twisted and blackened from the dead fire and completely free of feminine hygiene products. Oddly enough, Xigbar couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Luxord look so damn pleased with his little self.

"Mmhm," came Xigbar's grunt. He hoped it sounded like one of approval. Frankly, it didn't even convince him.

Still mucking through the rubble, Luxord jumped back (glided, really) onto the topic at hand. "So maybe if you took sleep meds, huh?" He threw out the suggestion like he threw a warped piece of plastic from his hand and into the surrounding piles. "Eight hours a night every night," he trailed on. "Not a bad way to waste the time."

Mulling over sleeping aids and possible endless nights of repose, Xigbar plopped down onto a mattress, resting his chin on a fist and taking on a position that he hoped conveyed his thoughts—beat, down, and drilled to the bone. It was then, with something of a start, that Xigbar realized that he was, in fact, sitting on a near pristine mattress, relatively intact and almost untouched amidst the sea of wreckage and charred treasures that only Luxord could see. Kicking the mattress with his heel, testing its reality just once more, Xigbar cleared his throat. "It didn't burn this one," he said.

"Hm? Oh. Guess they put it out before it could wreck that. Still kinda crispy looking. Won't find anyone sleeping in it, I'll gather." There was silence for a good moment or two before Luxord let out some warbley noise of victory (though he would deny it as a warble later) and declared, "_Here_ we are! A grade-A bonefied…"

Xigbar looked up. Luxord held some kind of metal mash of various things that had probably once had some sort of function. "A… a bonefied thingy." Properly labeled and described. Really, as far as Xigbar was concerned, what it looked like was the upper half of a one-breasted woman with a toilet bowl for a head. Perhaps it was an abstract sculpture—or at least, perhaps it could _pass_ as one now that the fire had had its merry way with it.

Maybe it was Luxord's discovery of the abstract art. Maybe the thing was not art, but some sort of alien totem of good fortune and fertility. Or maybe it was a simple chance twist of fate as Xigbar bent his knee just _so_ to tie his shoe, dragging his foot just _so_ up the side of mattress, and thus catching and flicking the very small, revealed corner of a folded piece of paper—just _so_ neatly tucked between the mattress and box-spring on which Xigbar sat.

Xigbar tilted his head to one side, furrowed his brows, and assumed the classic position of one confused. Grasping the paper between his index and middle finger, he freed it from its mattress tomb and held it up. "Luxord?"

Luxord turned, blinked, and made a face of some sort. He said, as though stating the obvious, "Paper's not worth keeping." And then, "Hey, wait, how come that didn't burn?"

"It was in the corner here," Xigbar said.

"Well, let's see it then! Come on, Xigbar!"

And Xigbar was poking at the mattress, note in one hand, the other groping around inside the space between mattress and spring box, as though searching for an essay, tome, or other indispensable piece of script to tie into the piece of something in his hand. "There's nothing else in—"

_Snaggity!,_ went Luxord, in some sense, and yanked the note from Xigbar's grasp with all too much ease. Before Xigbar could utter a phrase, a word, or a semi-coherent thought, Luxord had put a good ten-foot distance between them and was unfolding the letter and violating the thing with his eyes as they speed-raked over each curve and dip of each word and line.

If Xigbar had actually cared, he might have said something. Instead, he just waited with boredom or patience or a combination of the two—waited and waited for Luxord to declare his findings, which he knew he would. Sure enough, after a few seconds or so of careful observation, Luxord was grinning rather moronically.

"What's it say?" Xigbar asked, simply because the question was expected of him and without it, there would just be silence.

"Hah! Listen to this, listen to this!" went Luxord. And so he read:

"_If I could write a love poem for you, boy, I would. And I'll tell you right now, it would be the love poem to trump all love poems—it would be __that__ impressive. It would be just __that__ amazing. But the way things are and the way I happen to be, I'm not a poet. You probably know this by now. So here's an I.O.U. of sorts. __I.O.U__. the world's greatest love poem—the world's greatest love poem that will make Shakespeare's bones twitter and shift and hang in shame. I hope you're expecting something __magnificent__ by now, because you're going to get it. Meet me next week—the usual. Don't be late. Yours, X."_

Xigbar, thoroughly unimpressed, just rolled his head towards one shoulder. It was cold. He was still mildly annoyed about nothing in particular. "…O-kaaay. So?"

"Sooo… _This_, Xigbar, is what certain types of people like to call: A Love Letter. Definitely worth keeping." Ever the triumphant, Luxord beamed, folded the thing neatly in fourths and tucked it in the pocket of his sweatshirt.

"It's not like it was written for you, man," said Xigbar.

"Doesn't matter. Mine now. I wonder what poor sap lost this thing."

"Who knows? Better question: Who cares? It's not yours."

"But obviously the leaver or receiver didn't care enough to come see if it'd been left here after the whole joint burnt down." Luxord smirked, pleased that he'd buillshitted his way into making a point. "And besides," he said. "No one's ever gonna find it here—they're bulldozing this lot tomorrow. Who's to say I won't be returning it to its rightful owner?"

"Well you've already desecrated the damn thing and read it without permission." Xigbar raised an eyebrow. "It seems kind of… yanno. Wrong. Or some shit. Haven't you ever heard of personal property?"

"You're just sore it's not _you_ with the sexy secret love letter."

"Screw off."

Luxord picked up his abstract mound of strangeness and crossed the burnt land in calculated leaps and bounds, putting himself directly beside Xigbar as he moved to stand up. Notching his voice to a slightly higher pitch, Luxord crooned, "Poor baby Xiggles!" while examining the face of the metal and pondering love letters and the lot.

When Xigbar sighed and started heading back towards the car, he was only moderately surprised to find himself suddenly staggering under the added weight of Luxord and his metal monstrosity latched onto his back in some sort of lopsided piggyback fashion.

"_Xiggles_—what the—get _off_, dude!" Xigbar whined.

Blatantly ignoring the command, Luxord took a moment to admire Xigbar's healthy mane of hair—jet black where it wasn't white, smooth and fine all over. It was, after all, only a matter of inches from Luxord's nose. If anyone was going to judge Xig's hair, why, Luxord was in a proper position to do so. Xigbar couldn't hear his smile, but he damn well heard it in his words when Luxord announced: "Why, I wish I could do this to my hair."

"What? A ponytail?" Xigbar growled. "You'd look… weird."

"Why thank you, Xigbar. I assure you, your kindness is overwhelming me here. It's completely daunting. Overwhelming. How do you breath with all that kindness filling your body?"

"I'm just sayin' you look fine the way you are is all. 'Sides. You don't have enough hair for it anyway." Xigbar sighed, resigned to his pack mule position, hauling Luxord towards the car. For all that his friend was good and built, he was a more slender build than Xigbar, though why this was, Xigbar would never really know.

"I could grow it out," Luxord was saying, still fixated on hair-topics. "Be a head banger," he said. "Or I could, like, get some dreads and shit. The white Bob Marley revolution."

For some reason, unbeknownst to all, there was something just fundamentally _wrong_ about picturing Luxord singing reggae. Luxord at the beach—that was fine. That was doable. He had been to the beach countless times with Xigbar, and each and every time he went, he almost managed to drown himself by some miraculous means of stupidity—including that time Busty had gone along. Regardless, it was just the vision of Luxord—beach-savvy with a floppy, multicolored beanie and bongos and cowbells and everything that just rubbed Luxord's character in such a **wrong way**.

Xigbar could see it then. A skin-tone anomaly of tanned Luxord and white hair, rocking it up with his Jamaican buddies of questionable drug-related persuasions.

Shaking his head violently and accidentally bashing Luxord's nose in the process, Xigbar tried, in vain, to free his mind of the idea.

"You're full of crap," he muttered.

"Probably." Once he was sure his nose wasn't about to gush all over the whole place, Luxord leaned forward a little more, causing a grumble from Xigbar that Luxord would later reassure himself was a Sound of Affection. A lovely, grumbley, affection-noise. "This is fun, wouldn't you say?" he asked his long-time buddyroo, arms about his neck and chin atop his head.

"What, carrying your fat ass around all over town? Fun? Yeah. I'll believe it," Xigbar said.

"Harsh. So harsh, Xigbar. So painfully harsh."

"Well I wouldn't have to be if you didn't have the goddamn metal thing gouging me in my ass, you shit."

"Now, now, do you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"I don't kiss my mother at all, Oedipus."

"Touché."

There was a certain charm in using a Greek tragedy to throw a low blow at someone, and it was that certain charm that made Luxord grin a dopey grin and gave him the urge to pat himself on the back for a Thursday gone well. Only in his intention to pat himself on the back, he ended up patting Xigbar on the back instead. It's all too easy, apparently, to confuse one body for another in a moment of happiness. Xigbar, however, didn't even notice. He was still in Jamaica—heat of the summer, sun block and sand, oceans and bad beats backing up a boy who just should never, dear **lord**—_never_ have dreadlocks.

x x x

Somewhere far, far away from Jamaica and submerged in the grey depths of coming winter season, Xigbar and Luxord were sprawled out on a blanket well after dark. Luxord's sister was somewhere—he could only assume her husband was somewhere with her. Luxord himself had felt obligated to milk the Thursday for all it was and all it possibly could be, but really, the truth of the matter is that it was no hard task, prying Xigbar from a night of boredom in his bedroom to relocate to a night of possible not-boredom in Luxord's backyard. The fact that the temperature hung somewhere at around forty-six degrees was a very, very minor one. Luxord had many blankets.

Once, once, once, long, long ago, back in the days of yore and nineteen-ninety four, Luxord and Xigbar had not known each other. In fact, so caught up were they in their five-year-old days, they could not even seem to comprehend the idea of a "world". A _world_, in their minds, was what you could see and touch in the immediate surroundings, and as most youth (and, on occasion, some very sad and unfortunate adults) tend to believe, the world revolved wholly and entirely around them. Each step in a new direction revealed a new space of world that hadn't existed until their baby feet had happened upon it.

So it was that when Xigbar and Luxord _did_ know each other and when they _did_ come to spend time with each other, there was no safer way to regard the sky than in the presence of the other. The idea that there was a system outside their bodies at work was a terrifying one. And that idea—unlike a great many ideas—_remained_ terrifying. It was the sort of idea too daunting too approach on one's own. Company was absolutely required.

So though they never spoke of it and though they never addressed it in the slightest, both Xigbar and Luxord took some small sliver of pleasure in the idea of being able to stare into the inky blackness outside themselves—never mind the crutch of the best friend some three feet away. It was accomplishment, and accomplishment—especially for Xigbar—was a reason for rare pride and celebration.

On that one evening however, following the discovery of the letter, neither Xigbar not Luxord made it to thinking about the blackness beyond. They were stuck on more present issues of the here, the now, and the self-centered.

"It's too cold for this shit. Aren't they all supposed to be dead by now or something? I swear to God, if another mosquito bites me, the world is gonna see some hell unfold."

"We're practically surrounded by citronella candles, Xig. No, wait. They're torches, man. Citronella torches. Citronella _Tiki torches_. The bugs are at bay. Stop being such a girl."

Xigbar felt like sniffing, heaving a sigh, or giving a 'humph', but instantly jumped to the wise conclusion that such actions would only serve to prove Luxord's point. Instead he snorted—as deep and man-like as a snort could be, and executed a precise, if lacking, counterattack. "What's _girly_," he said, "are these stupid candles. Where'd they come from? Wal-Mart?"

"…No." Luxord waited a minute, frantically wracking his brain, trying desperately to reassure himself that yes, they _hadn't_ really come from Wal-Mart. After a moment he said, "Ikea."

"Ikea, huh? Fuckin' _Swiss_, man," said Xigbar.

"You mean Swedish," went Luxord.

"No, it's Swiss."

"Swiss, like, the Alps? Like Switzerland, right?"

"I said Swiss, didn't I?"

"So you mean Switzerland."

"No, I mean the goddamn Swiss."

"Ikea is _Swedish_."

"Whatever they are, man. They make crap furniture."

"They're _candles_, for God's sake, Xig!"

"At least they kinda work."

"God, forget this. Sorry I even suggested it."

It _had_ been Luxord's suggestion. Crappy candles and cold nights aside, he hadn't quite been willing to give up Thursday and he knew it and he hated that he knew it. Tomorrow would be Friday. He would see The Small and Curvaceous One and she would probably start crying on him and get mascara all over his uniform—possibly causing a stain that would give him grief from all his instructors that day. Later, she would apologize for being emotional but only become more emotional through her apology, somehow managing to guilt Luxord about being a virginity-stealing, female-deceiving, disbelieving sinner who deserved a fairly powerful kick to the crotch.

In remorse or fear—the two were much in the same—Luxord would apologize as well.

If all shit possible really hit the fan, Busty would think that they were back together and Luxord wouldn't have the heart to tell her no.

Such were the events Luxord was sure Friday held for him. It was as though each and every day except Thursday was a trip to a foreign land or a different planet, and Thursday was the brief intermission between it all, the momentary stop at the watering hole of home.

No one, in their heart of hearts, could blame Luxord for dragging Thursday out. Not even Xigbar could blame him.

"Hey, come on," Xig said. Luxord had made to stand, made to tear down the Tiki torches and be done with the night, because clearly the night was done with him. But Xig flailed a long, combat-booted leg out and caught Luxord in the heel, caught Luxord's attention. "Sit down," he pleaded, in such a manner of pleading that it really didn't seem like pleading quite so much as it seem like a plaintive yet powerful command. And when Luxord didn't listen, Xigbar just repeated and elaborated. "Sit your scrawny ass _down_ already, would ya?"

Luxord did, with a flourish and a plop, and Xigbar properly rewarded him with all the positive reinforcement glory they'd been drilled on as children. That is to say, Xigbar surrendered. "Swedish, yeah, whatever," he said. "Happy now?"

"Not especially, now that you mention it," Luxord drawled.

"So hey. What're we gonna do with that, uh, that thing?" Xigbar asked.

"The letter?" Luxord made a motion that was supposed to be a shrug, but it just ended up resembling a lopsided twitch a butterfly might give before being pinned to a board. He said, "I thought you were against it. Privacy of others, personal property, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Second thoughts on that one, mate?"

"No. And don't call me that." Something about the word 'mate' just brought to mind the all-too-repulsive reproduction rituals of questionable animals, such as the bird-eating spider and the praying mantis, to name just a very few. Xigbar shivered, though not at all from the cold. He insisted, "I'm just _sayin'_ we should get the letter to whoever it was supposed to go to, is all. No meddling or any crap involved. Just a good honest deed. One for the record books."

"And since when has Xigbar been all about doing good and honest deeds, huh?"

"Karma, man. I do this," Xigbar's thumb tapped his chest, "I'll get laid within the next three months. You just watch."

"Xigbar, Xigbar, Xigbar. You, sir, are a twisted mind trapped in an even more twisted body."

"I'll kick your ass."

"You're absolutely beautiful."

"Shut the hell up."

"Charming, really. Without a doubt the most ravishingly _gorgeous_ personality on the—whoop!" The 'whoop' was caused by some random beating Luxord found himself receiving on the side of his head. Rather than bitch or moan, he laughed it off. Such things were easy for boys to do. "Delivery boys, then?" he asked.

"For the time being. You were right when you said no one would find it if it stayed there."

"Wonderful idea, Xig. A true purpose with honor and dignity and only one tiny, slight, miniscule, little problem." Xigbar fixed him with the owl-eyed _'I'm going to pretend I know what you're getting at and wait for a follow-up explanation out of supposed sheer politeness, even though the reality of the situation is that I completely didn't register what you told me'_ expression, to which Luxord felt the urge to sigh and expand upon his thought. He said, "There are an _awful_ lot of people in the world and, alas, there are but two of us and but one single, itty, bitty letter. Face it, Xig. Lost cause. It was an idle thought in passing and nothing more."

"We're not talking about searching the _world_, Lux. Look. The letter was left in a _mattress_ store. Not many people just passing through town would pay a visit to a mattress store, let alone use it as some secret rendezvous point for some secret… _lover_… thing." Ever the master of eloquence, Xigbar did a mental calculation of how much of his reasoning and logic he could butcher into verbal communication in such a manner that it seemed at least mildly sensible. Having done this, he tactlessly blabbed out, "So whoever it is we're looking for lives nearby. We've got that much." He nodded. And was done.

Somewhere in the night, the last cricket of autumn rubbed his two little wings together and died.

"You're a regular Sherlock, you know that?"

"Shut up."

"No, no, let's talk this one out. I'm thinking a real sleuth ensemble could be in order. Trench and magnifying glass and floppy hat and all. Maybe even one of those bubble-blowing pipes."

"Dude. Why are you, like, in a constant state of being high?"

Luxord made a sound that sounded like a laugh—a laugh that sounded like a scoff. And the reality of the matter was that all Luxord's laughs, on some plane, on some level, sounded like scoffs.

He said: "_Hardly_." Meaning he was _hardly_ ever high and almost _never_ ever high in the presence of his beloved amigo, the daring and dashing gent of the Squinty-Eyed Splendor.

And to this, Xigbar said: "_Really_." Meaning he was _really_ quite positive he knew exactly what Luxord got up to in his spare time with Busty and the Prep School Pals, and it had all the makings of an after-school special on drug abuse and how it ruins lives.

So the discussion went.

"No, _not_ really."

"No, **really**."

"And next you're going to start on my candles again."

"What the _hell_ possessed you to buy them?"

"I didn't _buy_ them! And that wasn't a _cue_ to start on the _candles_!"

Somewhere in the night, the last Robin of Autumn swooped down from the sky and gobbled up the corpse of the last cricket of autumn without a second thought.

"How many more days like this?" Luxord asked. A sudden spell of sleepiness had rolled in, and he was only vaguely aware and grateful for the fact that no one died of hypothermia in forty-some-odd degree weather. He was also grateful for blankets, and though he would probably never admit it aloud, he was also, _also_ grateful for body heat. Namely, _Xigbar's_ body heat that seemed to rise up from his skin like liquid and drip down onto whatever surface and space he seemed to be occupying at the time.

Unaware of his heat or the gratitude of all things, Xigbar checked his watch, the face of it glowing green in the nighttime. He said, "One hundred and ninety three." _One hundred and ninety three days. No._ The digital numbers switched over to report the midnight hour. "Correction. One hundred and ninety _two_ days, counting breaks and weekends."

"One-ninety-two…" Luxord said the number aloud once and silently once, committing it to memory. Beside him, Xigbar was warm, unfazed by the cold, and was _considering_ turning his attention to the sky, where, perhaps, it should have been all along.

And that might have been how the evening had ended. A countdown of days left and a meek parting of ways until the next Thursday, when Luxord may or may not have made it around to seeing Xigbar, depending on how everything played out with Curvy on the morrow. But there's one little thing that you, I, and a great many of us fleshy, pulsing Earth-dwellers know well, and that is this: coincidence is responsible for all things. Granted, you could give coincidence any number of aliases—among the most commonly used might be fate, fortune, chance, luck, purpose, reason, or the ever-popular _destiny_. For the purpose of this tale, we shall call coincidence by her maiden name. Simply and perfectly _coincidence_—and left at that.

And as coincidence would have it, all matters were not laid to rest. The black void was before Xigbar and it was very alluring indeed. Had it not been for a slight gust of wind that caused the candles to waver, that caused their light to quiver, that caused Luxord's hair to glow and give the impression of movement—Xig probably wouldn't have made eye contact with Luxord at all. But such as things were, the wind did blow, the candle did shake, and the light did make it appear as though Luxord was a fire-prone disaster wrapped up in blankets that smelled of mothballs of plywood, and he was very much focused on Xigbar at that moment because he was very much occupied with the concept of aloneness and the one-ninety-two day countdown.

So it was that the eye contact, the void, the aloneness, the candles, the wind, the blankets, the hair, the countdown that all built up to the decision.

"Hey," Luxord said. "Let's do it, huh? We'll deliver this letter to whomever it was supposed to go to. We'll hunt 'em down. It'll be our last great deed."

"It'll be our _only_ great deed, really," Xigbar jibed.

"It'll be a twisted, modern day adventure of whimsical proportions."

"It'll be our first and _only_ modern day adventure of _any_ proportions."

"The one that happens right before death."

"Um. Morbid."

"_Very_. I can see the headlines now proclaiming—_Death: the next whimsical adventure_."

"Don't be a fruit."

"Don't be a prick."

Luxord had to double take then—a classic expression of shock and confusion riddling his handsome face. He could have sworn he'd heard Xigbar chuckle, though it was not the chuckle that surprised him. What surprised Luxord, really, was the realization at that split second that he hadn't heard that chuckle in a long, long time. And it was good—so damn, indescribably good—to be hearing it again, like it was something right and regular and even to his off-kilter day.

Xigbar was still smiling all off and lopsidedly when he said, "Alright. Let's deliver the goddamn note. Why not?"

(x) (x) (x)


	3. Vicious And His Brothers

_Special shout-out and thank you to deviantART users MarinaYoshi and DamnTorren, both of whom pushed, shoved, and inspired me with fantastic artwork to get this thing updated! See my profile page for links to some fanart. Yay!_

(x) (x) (x)

**How To Do Nothing At All**

'Vicious And His Brothers'

From the o' dark-thirty of school's start to the o' light-thirty of it's two P.M. release, Demyx had not stopped talking. Now, for many people, this was viewed as being a far shot from anything near remarkable. Demyx, being a very affable youth of eighteen with a great many friends and a great deal of energy, was all too happy to engage in the art of conversation with the kind of zest one half-starved hiker usually reserves for perishable foods upon the return home—such as fruit, yogurt, and the occasional cheese Danish, lightly dusted with powdered sugar and thickly dripping with the fat of ages. On this particular Friday we're speaking of, however, Demyx did not simply dive merrily into discussion and gorge himself on words.

He tore into the topic at hand with a savage, alien vengeance.

Before the bell? "Have you seen Axel around? Man, why's that guy always gotta push his luck, huh? Always so damn late, you'd think he was living in the poorhouse—didn't have a car, or whatever. And it's not even like there's traffic or anything, but—hey, you know what? I'll bet you—I'll just _bet_ you he's with whoever his little secret someone is he's meeting up with tonight. I'll bet you damn near anything. _You_ know the one. The one he's leaving me **and** the concert for? Yeah. That one. The _hell_."

After third period? "Axel! Hey, hey, hey, Axel! Over here! Hey, listen buddy, I was just gonna ask you—no, wait, not really ask you even—it's just that—well you see, we've been friends like, what, how long now? Like, just about for-freaking-ever, right? Well, I just wanted to tell you man, it really sucks—really _hurts_ me—cuts me _deep_—that you don't trust me with this little, tiny, itsy-bitsy sprinkle of your personal life. I share everything with you, man!"

And during lunch. Everything goes down at lunch. If you have learned nothing of the ways of the world to date—which is entirely probable, so don't believe yourself a hopeless fool just yet—at **least** know that everything goes down in the lunch hour. Even for grade schools, even for high schools, even when the lunch hour is really more of a lunch half-hour—the shit still goes down right then.

Right _when_ Demyx slammed on down his lunch tray, a medley of questionable burger, canned-fruit-and-cookie tower strewn out across it. From his bag came the liter of water—his trademark beverage in a coca-cola world—and he chugged deeply from the thing before setting it down on the table with another thud. He grinned, hands on his thighs, leaning forward, and peering into the faces of Roxas and Axel before him.

So it began again.

"Hey guys! Let's play twenty questions! Axel, you go first! You're thinking of your date tonight!" His thumbs did a rickety tap-dance on the tabletop, and if possible, Demyx leaned in closer still, asked: "So. Animal, vegetable, mineral?"

Roxas blinked. "That's not how you play—"

"_Demyx_."

The boy in question laughed delightedly, his blue eyes forced shut by a grin nearly devouring his whole face. He crowed, "Nope, nope, can't be me—I'm pretty sure I'd have to give _consent_ to a thing like that, and yanno, I mean, no harm _meant_, no offense, buddy, but—I don't see us workin' out in the long term if you're keeping me in the dark about our own relationship."

Perhaps if Axel or Demyx were more perceptive individuals, they would have picked up on the very violent twitch that overtook Roxas' left eye right about then. He gave Axel a sideways glance with the power to kill small mammals, but Axel—in his superhuman obliviousness—ducked oh-so-nonchalantly behind a shield of ignorance. The twitch went ignored and Roxas hated life.

"Don't be a total dip," Axel was saying instead. And then, as though Roxas' stare might possibly have pierced his little protective veil, Axel threw up an arm, slinging the limb around the kid's shoulders, jerking him close, shooting his own face up with a sympathy look, telling Demyx, "Look, you're making Roxas uncomfortable, man."

Demyx said, "Roxas isn't uncomfortable. Roxas, you're just as curious as me, aint'cha?"

"…Ye-ah."

"See? And you would never hold out on _him_."

Palms flat against the table, Axel managed to rise from his seat while coming within five degrees of looking rather intimidating. Were it not for the fact that he'd slept funny the night before and had a massive cowlick of red frizz sticking vertically up from the back of his skull, he really, truly might have pulled the look off. Instead, he looked something like an aged Little-Rascal-gone-Ace-Attorney-At-Law. And so in spite of his appearance, Axel's voice had a fairly impressive edge as he said, "There's a first time for everything," and an even more impressive edge when it cut, burn, and left to bleed Demyx out with the addition of: "And just to let you know, **this** is the first time I walk out on your annoying, yappy ass. _Buddy_."

Pitching his Styrofoam tray into the nearest trash bin, Axel's hand somehow found its way to Roxas' shoulder, stayed there a second or two, then left as Axel stormed out of the cafeteria, little tuft of hair wagging behind him like a severely misplaced tail.

"Dammit!" Picture of frustration, Demyx brought both hands down on the table in a startling smack, growling, leaning forward, and then face planting himself into his own two hands. If Roxas was startled—which he was—it most certainly showed in the raised eyebrow, bug-eyed expression he wore. After a moment or two of wallowing in his own defeat, Demyx mustered up the heart to pry his head from his arms, look up, and ask Roxas, "How do you put _up_ with that _turd_?"

This Roxas had to think about. In the span of two, maybe three seconds, he brought to mind all the events in which _Putting Up With Axel_ (the terminology of which sounded suspiciously like a bad Lifetime special) had been a necessity, for it was either put up with Axel or hang Axel from the nearest structure which could support his ninety-pound weakling weight. Such events included the time Axel convinced him that the school had a third floor with a swimming pool (back in Roxas' freshman year), the time Axel rigged up a trebuchet in his backyard and used it to launch tomatoes over his house, across the street, and onto Roxas' car, and the time Axel set his cat's tail on fire, an incident that Thursday (the cat) still hadn't recovered from. Neither had his tail, actually. It now measured a proud length of two and a half inches—bald, prickly, scarred, and looking rather like some sad phallic symbol.

How did Roxas put up with that turd indeed?

"Well, I don't. Really."

Demyx heaved an almighty sigh and propped his chin up on his fists, arms bent at the elbows. He took on a thoughtful look, losing himself—or at the very least, _pretending_ to lose himself—in the depths of his own thoughts. "Hey. But I'll _beeeet_… I'll **bet** if you played it up real sweet and innocent and everything, you could totally get Axel to tell you what's up, you know? He'd really tell you anything, seriously."

"No he wouldn't."

"Sure he would! Not just because you guys are tight. You're, like…" Demyx crossed his middle and index finger, intertwined them just so, hoping to convey some sort of meaning in the act. Roxas blinked at the crossed fingers, blinked and stared a moment before his gaze flicked over just to the left, just to where Demyx's smile still resided on his face. Uncrossing the Axel and Roxas fingers of the right hand, Demyx flatted his palms against one another and Roxas tried to ignore the fact that it almost looked as though Demyx—gel-haired, rock star, gossip nut Demyx—was deep in prayer. Deep in prayer when he directed that smile of his at Roxas and told him, "You give… confidence vibes."

"Demyx, if I'm your definition of confidence, uh."

"_No_, confidence like—telling a thing _in_ confidence. Won't rat. A not-ratter. That's you. In. Like. A nutshell."

At this, Roxas' eyes widened a little, big blue beams shooting rays of merry sunshine at lethal dosage levels. "You really think so?" he asked.

"Sure I do! Man, I'd tell you anything if I had anything to tell," said Demyx, with a most sincere 'from-the-bottom-of-my-heart' expression, one hand pressed against his chest.

"Well, everyone has something to tell," Roxas ventured.

"That's perfect! Save that attitude for Axel!"

"…Right. Will do."

And this conversation was thankfully interrupted by the arrival of the dynamic duo, which wasn't really so much a duo as it was two people who just happened to arrive at the same time, in the same place, with something akin to the same expression oozing off their faces and into the public eye. Demyx shot the newcomers that blinding grin, introducing them as one would a celebrated speaker at some celebrated event in a celebrated world so very not our own.

"Zexy-baby!" he crooned. And then, "Hey Xigbar!"

Whether he was miffed because no affectionate 'baby' had been stitched into his name or whether he was just having an off-key day, Xigbar didn't crack a grin as he flopped into his own chair beside Roxas. His head, drooping down, promptly swiveled on its neck—some twisty, jerky bird with a spinal problem and a mind of its own—as he faced Demyx. "What."

"Have you talked to Axel today?" Demyx asked.

"I bumped into him. His ass almost knifed my hipbone in two."

"That damn sharp thing…"

Zexion fixed Demyx with a rather pointed stare. So pointed was this stare that it even managed to have the force and fixation of one staring with both eyes, even though one of Zexion's was firmly shut off from the world by a thick shock of bangs drooping lazily over one side of Zexion's face. He said, "Demyx, haven't you ever heard some kind of high-brow phrasing that goes a little like 'To be curious about that which is not one's concern while still in ignorance of oneself is ridiculous'?"

And Demyx, for the sake of being somewhat polite, or at least somewhat humorous, just shook his head after a minute of wondering whether or not he'd heard such pointless droning ever before. It wasn't likely. And if he had heard it, well, it definitely hadn't stuck. So: "…No, I've never that load of crap. Who the heck said that? Oprah? And just what's it s'posed to mean, huh?"

"**Plato** said it. And it means stop hounding Axel and go get _yourself_ a girlfriend."

"Well, you know what I have to say to that?! 'Invincible is the guy in the lone snowmobile of the ice-night, following the light of life's many, many questions towards its many, many _fiiine_ resolutions.'"

"…And who said that?" Zexion asked, though he knew the answer before it even graced Demyx's lips with its presence.

"**I** did," Demyx said. He stood up, shouldered his bag, and then added, "And now, I'm out. Later dudes." He was walking forwards before he walked backwards, and then walking backwards when he flung one arm up into the air, and called out, "Oh. Don't forget. Ask Axel everything. Take no prisoners!"

Xigbar simply folded his arms and tried to act like he didn't want to smile, like he didn't find it all amusing. So, "Right," he replied. "You be Germany, I'll be Switzerland. We'll go _damn_ far." As Zexion had a tendency of doing, he'd gone and disappeared. It was just Xigbar beside Roxas, both of them quiet, both of them looking down at their lunches. The truth of the matter was that Xigbar had had a rotten day. Most days following days of mild to moderate excitement levels tended to be rotten. Xigbar was almost dead certain there was some psychological reasoning behind this, but what it was, he just couldn't bring himself to care about. Perhaps it had something to do with the more-that-likely chance that Luxord would make up with his Beloved Busty and that would be that. Friday would go down in the history books as the day That Truly Was That and Xigbar would lose Luxord forever.

Luxord hadn't been without Busty in years. Luxord had been without Xigbar for longer than that. Nothing looked hopeful. Nothing looked optimistic. And he couldn't for the life of his figure out why he'd packed a grilled cheese sandwich for his lunch that morning when any blind, senseless kindergartener could've known that the bread would go wiggly and the cheese would go wimpy.

Life for Xigbar blew hard. The only comfort he took in this realization was that, judging by the look on Roxas' face, life for Roxas blew hard, too. So maybe it was that realization—maybe it was some sudden fraternal urge within him that made him strike up a conversation with the kid. The worst that happened was that Roxas threw his lunch in Xigbar's face, cursed, cried, and then disappeared like Zexion. It didn't seem all that likely. Mostly due to the fact that few could rival Zexion's vanishing act.

"Uh. So. Roxas. …Where's everybody?"

"I dunno. Chasing Axel down?" Roxas tore violently into his turkey and Swiss sandwich. It was then that Xigbar noticed two more things. One, Roxas had very powerful canines. Two, Roxas _knew_ something. It was a day of revelations.

"…Hey. You know who he's got that date with, don'tcha?"

"Of course I do. But trust me. You don't want to know." How very ominous. And Xigbar promptly said so.

"Fuckin' _ominous_, man."

"If you say so."

There were any number of clever, biting comments Xigbar could have thrown back, but he, after all, was an adult. Adults didn't lower themselves to that level and Roxas was still very much a child. So it wasn't with any intention of vengeance or comeback that Xigbar simply up and asked Roxas: "What's with you always givin' vague responses? You wonder why Demyx never **dotes** constantly on you—it's cause he can't understand a damn word you're saying."

A thick wad of sandwich lodged itself halfway down Roxas' throat, and the pop-eyed appearance he took on made Xigbar a little worried he'd have to draw back on old CPR and rescue breathing tactics picked up his frosh year. The only problem was that he didn't have the damnedest clue as to what either CPR or rescue breathing was anymore. CPR could have stood for Cops Playing Roughly, Cashews Praying Risquély, or even Captain Peter Richards. He just _wouldn't know_. Lucky for Xigbar, during his little mental excursions into the land of abbreviations, Roxas managed to regain control of his esophagus. It came at the cost of watching a chewed and slobbery wad of food up itself from Roxas mouth, skitter across the table, and drop off the opposite side of the table.

"Hwut?" was the first utterance that came from this throat reborn.

Xigbar blinked. "I said, 'You wonder why cell phones took on—it's dumb you can't understand a damn word people are saying?' You know. Bad reception."

"…Is that really what you said?"

"No, I'm lyin' to you, Midgets. I just wanted to rub you the wrong way."

"Well congratulations? You did a good job?"

"Great to know." Xigbar's hands found their way into the oversized pockets of his oversized cargos, where they then encountered a little piece of paper that reminded him of a little important event. He turned back to Roxas, who was now picking pathetically at the remaining turkey pile on his napkin, clearly at a loss as to whether or not he wanted to risk his life again. "Hey, listen," Xiggy said. Roxas looked up. "That concert Dem's goin' to, right? You going?"

"…No. I tried to get tickets, but by the time I showed up they were all gone."

"Consider yourself lucky then, man. Here ya go." There it was, a valid—if not exactly pristine—ticket, brilliant blue in color with silver script and a sexy silhouette of the singing man everyone—man or woman—had at least one questionable fantasy about.

This isn't to say that Riku was a big name. The logistics of the world and a great many name surveys taken over the ages might actually suggest that 'Riku' is, in fact, a rather small name. But as far as local musicians go, people Knew him, and if you were Known, it was only a matter of time and so many sex scandals before you became Big. Granted, Xigbar didn't know this because he didn't know Riku and he didn't know the ways of such a world. Remember, if you will, that Xigbar's world was like much of middle class America's. It was a suburb, a few locally owned shops and eateries, and the glossy glare of corporation upon corporation, rivaling for the common dollar and the common man's support. The only reason Xigbar had the ticket was because Demyx had begged him, pleaded with him, and somehow magically coerced him into going.

And oh how Xigbar had _tried_—tried so impossibly hard—to part with that ticket once it arrived. He could have come up with any number of logical excuses for missing out on the concert provided he could get rid of the evidence in a mildly ethical way. Only, as luck would have it, local concerts didn't have much name in the black market. And before we get into playing the name game again, it's safe to say that sad Xigbar had considered himself condemned to a night of screaming teeny-boppers and… Demyx… long before Roxas and his shiny little stare waltzed in on the scene.

Flashing back to the crime of the times, Roxas held in his own two little hands, the ticket he'd wanted for weeks. "You're not going?" he asked Xigbar. Asking was a formality. The sweet little paper was already his and he'd bite off Xigbar's balls if he tried to take it away.

Unaware of this, Xigbar just shrugged. He said, "Naw, I… some stuff came up," and proceeded to poke a perfect hole through his grilled cheese with his pinky finger.

"No one died, did they?" asked Roxas, suddenly getting Bad Vibes.

"Not yet."

"Oh. Well. Wow. Thanks, Xigbar." Bad Vibes aside, Roxas allowed himself a moment of sheer bliss. Ecstasy. Elation. Ecclesiastical wonderment at the joy that was life, because with this ticket and with Axel's nonexistent presence, he just might have a shot at—

"No problem, kid. Just remember. If I ever start failing statistics, it's your test I'm copying first."

"Right."

"But hey, here's a question for ya. If you know who Axel's date is, why don't you just tell Dem?"

"Why don't I? …I… dunno. It'd be a low thing to do. It's not like it's important anyway."

It took Xigbar a moment, then, to get around to bringing Roxas into focus. He'd always had a soft spot for the kid, mostly because—stellar grades aside—Roxas seemed to share a similar breed of Xigbar's own apathy. But he'd never quite expected Roxas to stick loyal to much of anyone, least of all Axel. Lord knows that most people would never ally themselves with anyone who regarded their cat as an explosive. The idea was a noble one, and nobility was hard to come by. So it wasn't Xigbar's fault entirely when he cracked a grin, shook he head and just said, "You're right, Squirt. He'll find out eventually."

"God help us when he does."

"Is it really that bad?"

"…Yeah. Yeah, pretty much."

Some hours later, Xigbar was one with the herd moving in the general direction of the school's exit. There was this strange, good feeling he always found welling up inside when everyone around him was pushing towards the door and he had neither drive nor direction to move against them. It made the whole process of leaving quite effortless, really, because having no choice in where your feet landed meant having no choice in where you went. And having no choice in where you went—well, you follow. Less work, more empty brain-space. Up until the chill of winter wind came crawling up his spine, bringing with it some word—some damned creepy word that sounded awfully familiar.

Xigbar ground to a halt, pissing off the people around him—rock in a river—tree in an avalanche. Luxord's Saab was waiting at the Kiss n' Ride. Luxord's arm was sticking out of his sunroof. And it was Luxord's voice that was making him still and awkward, because suddenly he didn't have a handy dandy crowd to usher him about.

"Xiggy!"

"Luxord." Xigbar bent down towards the window, staring at the glass momentarily before Luxord actually got his wits about him enough to roll the thing down. Xigbar's head popped in, his salt and pepper ponytail flopping fishlike around his shoulders as he blinked, surveyed the car, and asked: "…What are you doing, Lux?"

"Some would call this courtship behavior," Luxord said with a grin, which Xigbar assumed indicated some level of jokery about the whole thing. "But I would call this picking my old friend up for a Friday afternoon of good sleuthing times."

"…Where's Busty?"

"I keep _telling_ you, Xiggy, she really doesn't like to be called—"

Xigbar's hand hooked through the open window, popping the lock and then whipping around to open the door, his body and the bulk of his backpack tumbling on in. Luxord shut up for then, content enough to have willed his unwilling compadre in without so much as a beg or plea. Up went the windows, on went the heat, and Xigbar slouched low in his seat. There was something strange about the whole ordeal and he wasn't having that much trouble placing what the strangeness was. He sniffed once, twice for effect, and said, "Your car smells different." A third time for emphasis, and then: "Your car smells almost… _manly_."

"Don't act like the world's faaallin' on your head, Xig. It just might get the urge."

"I don't get it."

"Get what?'

"_It_, it… this? I don't get _this_? I'm seeing you, like… two… days in a freakin' _row_, man." Luxord was making rather rude gestures at the soccer-mom minivan in front of them, which happened to have a very small child and a very large tuba holding up the line of the Kiss 'n Ride. The scent the Saab was missing, Xigbar knew, was that very faint yet constant ooze of perfume, which he had always assumed had leaked from Busty's body onto the navigator's seat and into the atmosphere around. "Did you get her pregnant or something?" Xigbar asked, just as Luxord was about to squeak the horn at the offending instrument and it's baby-buffoon owner. Instead, Luxord turned, blinked owlishly at Xig, and then let out some mind-boggling hoot of laughter.

"Hahaha-- _no_! Though if I did, would you be the godfather?"

"If I could be an Italian mobster, I'd do anything you'd ask."

"_That's_ the Xigbar I know and love. Now then. Are we going to have ourselves a lovely, charming ventricular one-on-one, or is it unnecessary now?"

"Uh. I haven't decided."

"Then let me so graciously give you the lowdown." Luxord, fed up with waiting, jerked the little car to the left, into the oncoming lane of traffic, causing several curses, honks, and screeches in the process and flipping off the minivan as he passed. Clearing his throat, he continued right along. He said, "It'll be just like an episode of _Mission Impossible_." With that, Luxord pressed play on the CD system. The proper theme played at the proper, pulsing loudness, and Xigbar could only stare very blankly in very obvious disbelief.

_Dun-dun-dun-da, dun-dun-dun-da, da-na-naaa… da-na-naaa… da-na-naaa… da-na!_

"I can't believe you."

"Well, now's a good time to start. Okay, so, here's what's up, Xig. It's like this. I just happened to drive by the old dump today while they were ripping it up—the mattress wreck—don't ask me why I was there, because all I can say is that Bridges has shit for coffee and I really needed some coffee, you see—and coincidentally enough, there _happened_ to be this guy standing around nearby, grumbling and cursing and all that goodness. Me being the Good Samaritan I am— I strode over, I asked him—very nonchalant and everything—did he need a dollar? Two dollars, maybe? You know about my two dollar bill collection, Xig."

"Sadly, yeah. I do."

Said collection was wadded up in Luxord's underwear drawer. Xigbar knew exactly what he was talking about. Last he'd seen the thing, it was twenty-seven two-dollars strong. Lord only knew how large it was now.

"Anyway, so I was offering this fellow my life, practically, on a platter, to make his day just a little better. And we start talking, shooting the good old fashion breeze, and he up and tells me he used to _work_ at the mattress store. Was a security guard—imagine. Why would a mattress store need a security guard? Can you picture someone sneaking out of there stealing a mattress? 'Oh this bulge in my shirt? No, no! Not a mattress at all! I'm pregnant! With twent-tuplets!'"

"God, kill me. Shoot me down."

"No, no, now here's where it gets interesting. I happen to tell him what we're up to—that we've found something we think belongs to someone—that they left it there for someone else. Right away, the guy's convinced it's a drug bust and I've made his day—he'd get his job back five times over for a catch like that. But then I tell him it's a love letter and he gets bummed, yes, but he tells me a very curious little thing." As though on cue, the light turned red, the car drew to a slow and steady halt, and Luxord leant in closer to Xigbar, grinned, and said, "The security footage for the mattress store _wasn't_ destroyed in the fire."

"…It wasn't?" Not that Xigbar would have though of looking at security footage anyway. Not that Xigbar had been even remotely interested enough in their escapade to the point of thinking about it through all hours of the long and lonely night like some people, some creepily deranged people, some people like Luxord.

"Nope! Turns out, the shop had had a break-in two weeks ago—stole a couple hundred from the register and all—and the police had taken all the recent tapes into the office downtown for a look. He said if I bought him a cup of coffee and a donut, he'd let us scan through the footage."

"Damn. Way to play it, Lux."

"Unnnfortunately, I didn't actually have any of my one, two, or five dollar bills on me—I didn't really have any dollar bills at all."

"…So you didn't buy him the coffee."

"Or the donut—no."

"Luxord—"

"Now, now, Xiggy. Never fear. We're _going_ to that station. We're just making a detour." It was at that precise moment that the Saab pulled to a smooth and steady halt beside a drive-thru speakerphone. Xigbar blinked. Peered out the window. The chipper-cheery sign of an obese man dipping a donut in coffee proudly proclaimed that they had arrived at The Donut Hole, local lard factory and distributor of general feelings of bloatation and indigestion.

To the com system, Luxord was saying, "Ah. Yep. Right. May I have… one dozen donuts—two crullers, two Boston crèmes, one Bavarian crème, two raspberry filled, one maple, one double chocolate, two rainbow sprinkles, and one glazed. And may also have three large coffees—cream, sugar, the works—and a blueberry muffin?"

"…Are we feedin' a fuckin' army?" Xigbar asked.

"You want anything?" Greeted by Xigbar's very blank, very empty stare, Luxord just laughed slightly moronically, head tilted back and mouth all wide open, just wide enough for Xigbar to make out the absence of his wisdom teeth—which he'd never known Luxord had gotten pulled. He said, "I jest. Really, I do."

The guy running the drive-thru was either very patient, very laid back, or just very bored. He lamely waited for Luxord's overpowering laughter to cease, then rolled out the monotone: "Is that all, sir?"

"Abso_lutely_," Luxord replied.

"Alright, we'll get it right up for you at the window."

If Xigbar cared enough to count calories, his brain would have been a dizzying spiral of thousands of zeroes. As it was, all he could really bring himself to do was stare rather incredulously at Luxord as the man slowly eased the car around the edge of the building towards the pickup window, all the while grinning like a madman and going: "Isn't America wonderful? Nowhere else is motor vehicle gluttony so easily attainable, so accessible. All they need to do next is convert every sidewalk to a moving walkway—cap every street corner with a hotdog stand and seafood buffet." Once they reached the window, he gave the man a twenty, took in his box of donuts, his bag of muffin, his carton of coffees, and proceeded to deliver some systematic "Thank you!" just as the pickup window slid shut.

"Here, Xiggy—you're in charge of these." The calories were handed off into Xigbar's lap.

"It's a heavy burden I carry," he confessed.

"A heavy load for any man."

And then: "You remember that time we watched _Patton_ in your basement?"

Xigbar hadn't the foggiest idea what brought the memory a-rushing in like it came, but there it was in all its juvenile glory. They'd been thirteen and ridiculous—as virtually all thirteen-year-old boys are bound to be—and had spent the entire afternoon layering one another in blankets—a foot's worth of blankets between one boys skin and the light of day—before toppling one another down a flight of stairs into Luxord's basement. It was all fun and games for about two hours of repetitive tumbles, before Larxene emerged from the top floor and asked them What In The Name of God They Were Doing, which brought about an end to their death yells, squawky falls, and hilarious bouts of laughter. Lucky for the two of them, their daily quota of violence was easily sated with an old VHS Marluxia had gathering dust in the depths of the basement's shelf—an old war classic that had left both boys wanting to buy Airsoft guns soon after watching it.

It was the sort of thing that came across as being difficult to appreciate, that sort of mindless lust for violence. But Luxord and Xigbar had recognized the thing, taken it for what it was, and had made an entire summer's worth of epic battles out in the hilly backwoods of the local creek. Even with no Airsoft guns, they still had very big sticks there were good for the whacking, the thwacking, and the merciless, merciless beating.

"'Thirty years from now,'" Luxord quoted, dropping his voice to a gravelly, americanized tone, "'when you're sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks you—'"

"'What did you do in the great World War II?'—"

"—'You _won't_ have to say, 'Well, I shoveled **shit** in Louisiana.'" It took a certain kind of smile—the smile Luxord happened to have right then—to show off how ridiculously white his teeth were. The CD ended the _Mission Impossible_ theme and picked up some happy-go-lucky tune, some fellow singing some song—the kind of song that movie themes would play when people were skipping down streets, pulling practical jokes, or having generic, Hallmark-worthy good times. And, "_Damn_ good movie," Lux chimed. "_Memorable_ soundtrack. _Riveting_ plotline. Full of testosterone. It put all the hair on my chest I have to date."

"You do Patton a serious injustice," said Xigbar.

"Hey now, hey now, my chest is like a rolling plains—a vast plains of hair and manliness."

"If I remember correctly, you're about as hairless as a—"

"As a yeti, quite right, good show, Xig, keep up the good work and don't forget, friend, save some of your wit, charm, and astoundingly dashing looks for our security guard amigo within."

Xig hadn't even noticed they'd arrived. There was no real indication the building they were in front of then was really a police station at all. To be brutally honest, it just looked like an experiment in modern architecture gone wrong—all concrete angles, poor landscaping, and a tragically vacant parking lot.

"You're sure this is it?" he asked. Luxord just nodded, hopped out of the car, and pulled on his mittens, leaving Xigbar to fumble with the door latch and ten pounds worth of crap food and coffee.

The inside of the station wasn't much better. Three officers were present, two of them slouched deep in battered, overstuffed chairs by the water cooler, the third bent at an awkward angle over his desktop PC, which was making noises suspiciously similar to a small, dying mammal. None of them looked up when Xigbar and Luxord entered, but this didn't seem to faze Luxord in the slightest. Quite the contrary, he strode right on over to the made at the desk, placed both hands flat on its dusty old surface and put on his People-Handling grin of unsurpassed quality and conditioning.

"Officer Wakka," he crooned. "How d'ya do today?"

x x x

Officer Wakka was an interesting character, and it was a terrific pity that Xigbar never really did get around to knowing him all that well. Wakka was raised with his grandmother, who he affectionately called Nana. His Nana, in turn, affectionately called him 'Kaka,' which was sadly the word some obscure cultures used for 'shit', but as many individuals of an elderly persuasion were, Nana was rather oblivious to this fact. The thing about Wakka and his Nana was that they originally grew up in a tropical climate, and when they made the move the made—shortly after Wakka's Papa kicked the Mediterranean bucket—they had a serious lifestyle adjustment to make.

Now it just so happens that Wakka had never seen snow before when he moved to the small city he did. A freshman in high school and completely floored by a speck of white drifting down from the sky—it was like God had dandruff, really, and it was quite a tragic day for Wakka. He went home that afternoon, right after blitzball practice, and he flat out told his Nana—he said, "Nana, I don't mean nothing bad by it, ya, but this is a pretty ugly place, yanno?"

And do you know what his Nana said? His Nana said, "I have no idea what you just said ta me, Kaka, 'cause I've gone deaf in my right ear. But there's tea on da stove. And look at that—it's snowin' outside. Isn't that something?"

And that was the very abbreviated version of how Wakka came to be the upstanding member of society he was. Granted, we missed out on a great many things, such as Wakka's first kiss, Wakka's first time in the hay, and Wakka's first pet guppy, but let it here be known that Wakka lived a truly historic life of monumental importance, and of all those five men in that police station that day, only Luxord seemed fully aware of this. Xigbar's awareness would come later—much later. For at that moment, all he saw before him was a man rapidly approaching the dangerous grounds of middle age at leaps and bounds, harboring a caffeine addiction and a craving for high-sugar, high-fat substances.

But nothing was entirely what it seemed.

x x x

It didn't take more than five minutes total in the station for Xigbar to find himself wondering where the hell their tax dollars were going. The room for viewing security tapes was roughly the size of a walk-in closet, one lone naked light bulb and pull-string hanging in the dead center of it all, shelves and stacks of VHS and DVD recordings lined from floor to ceiling in no particular order. In the midst of it all was another desk, another PC, and Officer Wakka, shuffling through piles of paper and unlabeled cassettes. Luxord had made himself comfortable on a tipped over milk crate, and it was really all Xigbar could do to keep from kicking the thing out from under him and taking it for himself. He stood for a moment, but when Wakka sat down, the effort of resisting peer pressure became too much to bear, and Xigbar sank into a cross legged position beside Luxord, his shoulder bumping against his knee on his descent.

Xigbar looked up to apologize gruffly, but Luxord was just smiling—just smiling on one side of his mouth and waiting for Wakka to speak. So Xigbar shut up and did the same. Minus the smile, of course.

Taking Luxord's offer of coffee in hand, Wakka took a long deep sip, let out a long deep sigh, and looked towards Xig and Lux with an almost pleased sort of face. When he talked, his voice was a deep, accented rumble—not the most educated speech, but somehow warm in a way Xigbar wasn't really used to.

Wakka said, "Well, yanno what I think? I think it actually might belong to a friend a' mine. Now that I think about it, ya? I got this friend a' mine—Yuna. Known her a real long time an' all. She works part time at the Starbucks a couple blocks up from the old mattress store, an' she'd always bring me some java close to closin' time, when I'd show up. But sometimes, even when she was off work, she'd show up anyway and hang around."

"Maybe she's into you?" Luxord suggested. Xigbar whacked him in the shins. "_What_?"

"Hahaha! Nah, nah, see, she's already into somebody else. That I know, 'cause I live with the guy. But she don' wanna tell him. Too shy. Too _something_."

Xigbar said, "So if she's too afraid to confront him face-to-face, you're thinking that maybe she ties into the letter as like a…?"

"Different means of romantic communication. Maybe she's a poet," Luxord said.

"She could be, now that I think about it." Wakka tilted his head, staring off into an obscure corner of the small room, and then drank from his coffee again.

"Well now that you _think_ about it, would you recognize her handwriting if you saw it? Or your… what is he, your roommate?" Luxord asked.

"Ya, my buddy Tidus. My roomie. And nah, I wouldn't recognize their writing if it came up and bit me square in the… yanno. But hey, those tapes I mentioned. I haven't looked through all of 'em, but in the last two, she's there a lot." At this, Wakka swiveled the chair he sat in around to face the computer. His thick fingers punched against a few keys, he jabbed the mouse button a few times, and up on the screen appeared an overhead view of the mattress store, as it once had been.

The store was lined with mirrored walls on either side, to make the space appear bigger, lighter, and full of more merchandise and people than it actually was. It was a marketing ploy Xigbar's step dad had told him about once, and while he hadn't been paying attention at the time and had hardly given half a rat's ass worth of a damn, it was something, then, to be able to look down on the store from that angle. From that market-creepster angle.

When the woman appeared, Wakka pointed her out, one finger flying out, tapping against the screen. "See her?" he went. "Right there. Hung around a whole lot, and while we're friends and all, I dunno, maybe she was there for a whole other reason?"

From the back, the woman seemed all right enough. In a tan plaid pea coat, she cut a pretty nice figure—feathery hair flipping out, flipping in, falling somewhere between chin and shoulder. The men in the room watched as the footage-woman walked around the shop a bit, then went and sat on one bed, bouncing on it slightly, trying to appear as though she was looking into buying it, but only succeeding in appearing bored and confused. As the camera caught the front of her, it was difficult to make out her face, but the shape of it was like a heart and Xigbar saw, from the very corner of his eye, a small, almost unnoticeable return of the smile to Luxord's face.

Clearing his throat, Xigbar suddenly felt the urge to interrupt, to stop them all from staring obsessively, spookily at this woman in a now-dead store. He had the feeling it was wrong somehow, but that—in spite of its wrongness—they could do it for hours. He didn't apologize when he shifted his weight, bumping into Luxord's knee again. Instead he just mumbled: "But why would she go to so much trouble of talking to a guy who lives with her friend? I mean. How shy do you have to be _not_ to ask someone out or whatever?"

"Maybe she's got a reason," Luxord said. He lifted just one shoulder in a shrug, and then let it fall. Said, "Shy girls aren't always bad news, you know. Sure, maybe they make god-awful club dancers and not the best singers alive, but they usually have excellent… other features."

"Bodies?' Xigbar asked.

"And _other_ things, you know."

Wakka just shrugged, picked idly at the rim of his Styrofoam coffee cup with his thumbnail, and said, "Yuna's shy alright. She's a good girl, but still just that. A _girl_." He locked eyes with Xigbar, and Xigbar got the distinct impression that he was supposed to know, on some base level, what exactly that phrasing meant. For a girl to be _just a girl_. He didn't have the slightest idea, of course, but his blank nod gave Wakka whatever reassurance he needed to go on. "Twenty-two and hasn't really had a serious relationship, yanno?" said Wakka. "Just a bunch of dates here and there and… school, work. I dunno. I worry about her."

Xigbar didn't mean to scoff—he just happened to have a sudden itch in his throat, was all—but he didn't really find himself regretting it when he did. On the screen behind Wakka, Yuna stood, turned, and walked over to another mattress, sitting down on it, repeating the same motions like a badly rehearsed routine. "So why haven't you just gone and set her up with the guy already?" Xigbar asked Wakka. "It's not that hard."

"I just don't feel it's my place," Wakka confessed. "I mean, she made me promise I wouldn't go and do a thing like that. And I don't mean ta. I just want her to be happy is all, yanno? And if that note's hers or Tidus'—well, I want 'em ta keep whatever they had goin', ya? And if they need notes for a while, they need notes for a while. That's just how it is, I guess."

Luxord's had had been making some peculiar bobbing motion for the past two sentences Wakka had been talking. He was still staring dead ahead at the screen and Xigbar kind of had a strange, powerful urge to beat him a little. But the urge died, when Luxord looked back towards Wakka, had still bobbing like it was, and he put on his People face again. He said, "Deep words, sir. Real deep words. And a truly, sincerely respectable stance on so fragile a thing as relationships in the modern day. Have another donut."

"Hey, thanks," said Wakka, taking a Bavarian crème from the box.

"My pleasure."

"So, uh, how do we know if it's your friend's or your roommate's note if you don't recognize their handwriting?" Xigbar then asked.

"Well, you could show it to 'em, I guess. I would do it for ya, but Tidus is at work or out most of the time I'm home and I'm out at work most of the time when he's home. That's the whole way security guards work. Man, it's a rough life, huh?"

"Indeed it is." Bobbity-bob-bob, went Luxord's head.

"I dunno… You could go by da Starbucks sometime. See if Yuna's working. I'd give you her address, but I dunno how much I trust a couple a' guys off da streets. I mean, not anything personal or anything. Just safety is all."

"And I _completely_ understand," Luxord said.

"Well. I think she's done today, and she doesn't work on Sundays. But durin' da week, she usually works, like, six ta eleven or so."

"A.M. or P.M.?" asked Xig.

"A.M."

"Ugh, brutal hours, man."

"Ya, but she's got classes. All I'm sayin' is, she's got a lot on her plate. If she's trying to start something up with Tidus, that'd be great, and it'd be good for both of 'em."

"And I _totally_ agree." Luxord leaned forward then, clasping his hands, elbows resting one on each knee, and even Xigbar had to admit that when he wanted to, the guy could cut a striking look. He had one corner of his mouth stapled upwards, a look of some bizarre respect and admiration settling across his features rising up from the depths of nowhere. Somehow, Xigbar suddenly got the feeling he should've felt this one coming. "You, sir," Luxord began, "are the picture of what today's national defenses and security guards should be. Why, if every officer this side of the country were _half_ the man of integrity and smarts you are, I daresay I'd join the force myself. A truly noble profession."

"_Luxord_…"

"And what's more than that—you've proven yourself to be a loyal friend. I couldn't ask for a better friend, myself! Even if this fellow next to me tried to—"

"Well, _shit_, Lux, we gotta blow this pop stand 'cause you've got that… fencing lesson of yours we need to get to and my mom's still in the hospital so you'll just have to drive me all the way home before you go." Xigbar was already standing up, his fingers nervously playing up against the elastic of his eye patch, his throat scratching itself up into a slight cough. It must have been the dust in that cramped room. That was the only real excuse there was.

"Your mom's in the hospital?" Luxord asked. Wait. That was actual concern. Xigbar cursed a mental '_Shit_!' and then responded.

"Uh. …Yes."

"Shit," Luxord said aloud. The irony wasn't quite getting across from Xigbar's face to Luxord's head. "Why didn't you tell me?" he asked.

"…I _did_ tell you, Luxord." Even the slight grit of teeth wasn't really conveying the image. Meanwhile, Wakka had the donut box open again, fingers wiggling indecisively, trying to place a bet on whether he wanted maple or Boston crème.

"No. No-ho-ho, you most definitely didn—"

"Thanks for all your help, sir."

Swallowing a mouthful of fried doughy goodness, Wakka managed to sputter out: "Any time. Lemme know how it works out for ya. I'll let you know if I get anything else from these tapes. Go through 'em in my spare time and all." Xigbar and Luxord were out the door, and before Wakka could really utter another question, another farewell, another scrap of helpful, worldly advice, his mouth was full again.

Outside the door, Xigbar's mouth was completely empty, with the exception of a few choice words, which he promptly spat out. "What was _that_ all about?" he hissed.

"What?"

"You were _completely_ mooching up to that guy."

"I was not!" cried Luxord. He managed to tear himself free of Xigbar's grasp and get maybe two strides ahead of him before Xigbar caught up. They were out of the station then, and Luxord's words only came across as being frosty because his breath hung in the air as plumes of gray vapors. He had to turn to ask Xigbar his question, and in doing so he greatly misjudged the distance between them and managed to snag his feet all up and under Xigbar's. Being the denser of the two, Xigbar just let out a spluttery sound of surprise while Luxord damn near cart wheeled sideways down the station steps—or would have, had Xigbar's arm not looped through his own at the very last second.

What occurred was an odd rendition of the age-old Barrel of Monkeys game—Luxord and Xigbar chained by the arms, one be-dangling rather lifelessly, rather cluelessly, suspended in midair for all of maybe two split seconds before he righted himself again. Luxord blinked at Xigbar and Xigbar, out of duty, returned the expression. Clearing his throat, Luxord did what Luxord did best. He pretended as though absolutely nothing had happened.

"And **why** is your mother hospitalized?" he finally asked. "Did you pointlessly accuse _her_ of wrongdoings to the point of cardiac arrest?"

Xigbar, being a fellow of a modestly sized attention span, had gone and forgotten what exactly it was they were even arguing about in the first place. So if Luxord was flustered, he didn't really know why. He just started his own casual pace down the stairs and let his words roll off his tongue like jelly off a spoon. "Don't be a dumbass. My mom's not in the hospital," he said. And then, brain obviously elsewhere: "Man. How're we gonna get that note to that girl?"

The Saab unlocked with a cheery little _bleep!_ and Luxord climbed into the driver's side. "Yuna," he said. "Funny name. Sounds like 'tuna'. I wonder if she suffered as a little girl."

"Oh, probably."

"Well, we could either go at some ungodly hour of the morning before school next week. Or we could wait all the way until next Saturday, by which point whatever puny, pathetic little relationship she might have developed with this Tidus boy could've completely dissolved in their incapable hands." Luxord was drumming his fingertips against the steering wheel, tongue clicking against the roof of his mouth in time with the click of his left turn signal. Then he declared: "OR" as though it was, it itself, a turning point, and left it at that.

A moment of awkward silence ensued. The car turned left. "…Or?" Xigbar prompted.

"_Or_ we could just skip school altogether, get coffee, solve mysteries, and play hooky. What better year to do it than your senior year, right?"

"Won't your sister… hunt you down or something?"

"As if she'll find out. Trust me, Larxene's got her own hands full with whatever she does. At wherever she works. With whomever she works."

"Boy, I sure missed hearing about your stellar sibling communication skills."

"Monday morning hooky it is. In the meantime, what's say we just—"?

There came, from the depths of Xigbar's pocket at that moment, a very rapid succession of bleeping and blooping noises. Pulling his cell phone free, a very loud, very off-key polyphonic rendition of Ozzy's _Bark at the Moon_ blared into the car.

"Sorry," Xig said. And really? He was sorry. He hated his cell phone at that moment, and prayed to whatever god there may have been that it wasn't Demyx offering to give him a ride to that concert he was most definitely not going to. "Yeah, what's up?"

But it definitely, _definitely_ wasn't Demyx. "Xigbar…" came the shaky little voice, and it was with something of a terrified start that Xigbar realized that it was _Roxas_—of all people—on the other end of the line.

"_Roxas_? Rox, dude, what's up? Are you alive?"

"I can't go to the concert, Xigbar, and I was wondering if you wanted your ticket back…"

"**No**." He coughed. Luxord shot him a sideways look. "I mean. _Oh_ no. Oh no, **no**… what, ah, what happened?"

"My cat's in labor," Roxas said.

"...I… thought Thursday was a man."

"No…"

"You're sure he's a woman?"

"Yes, Xigbar, I'm sure Thursday's a woman now. I thought he was just getting **fat**. I don't know what to do." About that time, Xigbar picked up on a very high pitched, very insistent _yowling_ in the background. On Roxas' end, there was some shuffling, some scuffling, a very loud, definite thud, and then Roxas' hissed little curse of, "_Fuck_."

In the car, Luxord was whistling a perfectly in-tune rendition of his own_ Bark at the Moon_, complete with astounding guitar riffs and solos, made possible by his uncanny ability to triple tongue notes at a ridiculous pace. Somehow, the entire composition of cat yowls, curses, and whistles all amounted to a very moving piece that drove Xigbar into a stunned kind of silence. When he pulled himself out of it, Roxas was still on the phone, obviously talking to his cat, clearly going insane, as far as Xigbar could tell.

"Okay, well, uh, first of all, calm down, Roxas," he said. What he meant to say was that he had no idea what Roxas wanted from him and he should really learn not to call on Xigbar for much of anything.

"I am calm," Roxas said.

"Well, be calmer."

"Xigbar, can you just drive me to the vet?"

"Can **I** drive you to the--? Where's _Axel_?"

"**Axel**? I called **you**, man! Axel's on his _date_, remember?"

"Well maybe I'm doing something important?"

"You never do anything important! And my cat is _**giving birth on my kitchen floor**_—what's _wrong_ with you?"

"Nothing's wrong with me—I—_Je_sus, I'm sorry, I…"

Luxord had quit whistling and Xigbar was hating the amount of stoplights that existed in their area, because each and every one of them seemed to catch the Saab and give Luxord a chance to look over at him at the worst possible times. "…Xigbar," he said.

"_WHAT_."

"If someone is in labor in a little boy's kitchen, this is serious business."

"It's not a _woman_—"

From the phone: "I told you, Xigbar, Thursday is definitely a—"

"Not you! Just a minute!"

Turning back to face Luxord, Xigbar found that Luxord was already looking away, directing the car forward, his eyes wide, his mouth open in a sublime state of shock when he said: "It's not a _woman_? There's a _man_ in labor? _Christ_, this is **serious business**."

"His _cat_ is giving birth."

"…The cat your friend of strange colors tried to ignite?"

"…Axel?"

"That one."

"Yeah."

"_Well_."

"…Yeah."

Roxas was coming through again, the yowling behind him louder, more persistent. Xigbar wouldn't be at all surprised if Roxas was in his kitchen right at that moment, huddled down beside Thursday with the phone next to the damn animal's wide open mouth, just to try and convince Xigbar of what pain, what suffering the fur ball was in. And damn, but it was working. "Xigbar, please," came Roxas_. Yoooowl, yowl, yo-o-o-owl._ "Look, my parents aren't home, you know I can't drive, and the vet is three miles away. Plus, Thursday weighs, like… thirty pounds…"

"Oh, _thirty pounds_—are you a man or aren't you?"

"Come _on_, Xigbar!" Luxord was looking about ready to bounce in his seat, but thankfully, he remained relatively composed.

"You don't even know where we're going!" Xigbar snapped. And then, on a better thought: "And we're _not_ going!"

But Luxord's mind was made up. The car swerved a little as he reached over and easily plucked the cell phone from Xig's grasp, then swerved again when he set the thing up against his ear. A particularly strong contraction must have hit the cat right about then, because even Xigbar, from the opposite side of the car, picked up on the unearthly wail screaming through the phone. Blinking, Luxord thought better of his initial plan, held the phone at a two-inch distance from his ear, and asked it, "Kid, who are you?"

"Roxas."

"Great. Age, sex, location?"

"…Who are _you_?" he asked.

"Your cat's guardian angel." And Roxas, with a moaning cat, no car, no vet, and no knowledge whatsoever of feline delivery processes, could do nothing but lamely list off his whereabouts to a total stranger who he could only hope wasn't high or intoxicated by some other means. "We're on our way," Luxord said after, and then flipped the phone shut and tossed it back into Xigbar's lap—Xigbar, who was sulking against the side of the car, face mashed up against the window, and only responding with an evil eye when Luxord bubbly asked him, "Isn't this _exciting_?"

"…No?" _Honk_. "Luxord. That was a very red light."

"Look. If you were a little boy of some innocent years of age, would you want your cat's uterus exploding on the ground your mother cooks your daily meals on?"

"No."

"Exactly my point."

Again, Xigbar's phone went off, and this time he had half a mind to throw it out the window. But, in the hopes of Roxas calling back and saying he didn't need a ride after all because his parents had conveniently just gotten home, Xigbar picked up. Foolish, foolish Xigbar just had to pick up.

"Hello…?"

"Xig-xi-Xigbar?"

"…Kairi." Xigbar cursed the day he somehow became nominated as the resident baby-sitter without his own knowledge. Or consent. "Yeah. What."

"Are you busy right now?"

"That depends on your definition of busy. Is your cat in labor?"

"What are you _talking_ about? I don't _have_ a cat!"

"I'm sorry… Damn. Okay. Hey, what—what's wrong, huh?" Kairi's background noise was one of the bustles of the public, at least, a sure step up from screeching animals. But her sniffles and snuffles somehow made Xigbar's shriveled, blackened little heart do a little flip, a little flop, and damn, but he just couldn't help but worry just the slightest bit.

"Who is it?" Luxord whispered in a rather not-that-whispery tone.

"_Shh_."

"I… I need a ride h-home…" Kairi said quietly.

"Who _is_ it?" Luxord said, still not so quietly.

Xigbar rolled his eyes, placed one hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and just said, "Kairi."

"I don't know her," said Luxord.

"She's little," explained Xigbar. And somehow that seemed to do the job just fine.

"Ah."

Attention back towards whatever new sufferer was on the line, Xigbar said, "Well, uh, have you tried calling… Have you tried calling…"

"_Please_, Xigbar… I don't want my mom to see me like this," she mumbled. And somehow, in Xigbar's uninformed, teenage mind of only so much experience, a bad mood, a sad girl, and an embarrassment to be seen by one's parental unit could only mean but one thing.

"…Did someone _rape_ you?"

"Someone **raped** her?"

"Because if someone raped you, I swear to God, I'll—"

"_No_, Xigbar, I'm just—I'm just upset. _Please_? Can you come get me? I don't want to bother you I just—"

It must have been a magic working by the hands of God or another mystical man up top (Read: the Great Puba, Ambassador of All) that made the world play out like it did right then. For as Luxord was doing five, maybe ten miles over the speed limit in the old town district, Xigbar spied with his little eye a certain little redhead. On a cell phone. Looking completely and utterly miserable. The coincidence was almost too much to bear.

"Stop the car!" he shouted, and hadn't even gotten the word 'car' fully out of his mouth before his seatbelt nearly choked him half to death as the Saab screeched curbside into an elegant, forty-five degree parallel park.

He could have sworn right then that he heard Luxord say something like, "God, I **love** this." And it seemed rather likely that it had been more than just a thought, judging by the fully developed grin taking over Luxord's face, but that was neither here nor there and Xigbar rolled down the window on his side and flagged Kairi down. She looked up, looked ridiculously confused, and then promptly closed her little pink cell phone, slipped it into her purse, and all but sprinted into Luxord's waiting car.

"Xigbar! How did you get here so fast?"

"…I don't know," Xigbar said. Because really, truly, honestly… he _didn't_ know.

"Oh look at that. She's adorable." Kairi shot Luxord a winning smile and Xigbar wished, on some twisted level, that the seatbelt had, at the very least, had the courtesy to render him unconscious, even if only for a little while.

"We're going to see Roxas," he said, for lack of anything better. Certainly there were a thousand and one other things he had to say to the girl, but saying them was wherein the problem lay. He wasn't entirely sure how to say them at all. Judging by the faint trails of mascara leading down from her eyes and the worn-out appearance to her usually impenetrable perk, Kairi had definitely had a rough time of it. Whatever 'it' was—Xigbar couldn't even begin to guess. But there she sat in the back seat, suddenly acting as though nothing was the matter, licking her fingertips and quickly wiping away the smudged makeup, restoring her face, restoring her composure.

"I didn't know you and Roxas hung out," she was saying.

"We don't. His cat's delivering kittens and he needs help."

"I thought Thursday was a boy cat?"

"Apparently not."

"Wow! That's so cool, Xigbar!"

"See? It _is_ exciting." Luxord couldn't really control his need to chime in.

"Just drive the car," Xigbar muttered. "Are you okay back there?" he asked Kairi. He could have just about killed himself for how painfully awkward he sounded.

"I'm okay."

"Do you wanna… fuckin'… _talk_ about it?" _I shouldn't have said fuck. Dammit. Chicks hate it when you say fuck. Maybe. Or at least. It's not very sentimental. Am I supposed to be sentimental? I fail at sentimental._ "That's what they all do, right?" Xigbar ventured. Awkward… awkward… "I mean, I'm supposed to ask you that, aren't I?"

"It's okay, Xigbar. Thanks for getting me."  
"Well. It was on the way. …Uh. Apparently. But you're sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine." Kairi smiled. And yet, all smiles aside, Xigbar couldn't really help but resent her. Here he was, finally, _finally_ seeming to have won Luxord's attention back for however short a time, only to have said time taken away once more by needy little teenagers who he couldn't even understand needing him in the first place. Kairi and Roxas needed people like Demyx, Axel, and hell, maybe even Zexion, if they could hunt him down and were in desperate need of honest, brutal advice. But Xigbar had always taken some sort of twisted pride in how unneeded _he_ was. He served no purpose, offered no shelter, no comfort, no anything, really, and had always fit well into that role. …Or… lack thereof.

What was worse still was that Luxord didn't even seem to mind in the slightest. He was all too willing to rush all over creation to pick these stragglers up, showing some rare aspect of caring that Xigbar had never seen in the guy before. He couldn't tell if it was good or bad, and the confusion of the two left him with a headache and a case of wonderment as to why Luxord had to smile so damn much.

"Roxas' house is that way," Kairi said from the back.

Fifteen minutes later, Luxord, Xigbar, Kairi, Roxas, and Thursday were well on their way to the veterinarian's office. And Luxord and Roxas were well on their way into a conversation about proper care and maintenance of pregnant animals in cars with leather interiors.

"Uh, hey, can you put a shirt under that cat or something? I don't want her water breaking on my backseat."

"It already broke."

"Well. Ew. _Dripping_, then, just… wrap the thing up."

"Aww, poor ba-by," Kairi was crooning into the thing's ear. It proceeded to scream in her face, it's own little eyes squeezed shut in pain, but Kairi only seemed to dote more obsessively on it.

"But what if the things start coming out? What if I smother them?" Roxas asked.

"Can we just get to the vet already?"

"Look kid, I love coming to the rescue and all. I really do. But I really, really don't want to have to rinse the smell of your _cat's_—"

"Turn left."

"—_woman_ juices out of my car."

"Why are we having this conversation?" Xigbar was asking, trying to pretend he wasn't going to be violently ill while _also_ trying to pretend his voice wasn't toeing the line between decent and desperate. "Could someone _please_ tell me why we're having this conversation?"

I'll tell you what. I'm going to do you a favor.

I'm going to spare you the lurid details of Thursday's labor. It was really every bit the ghastly affair I make it out to be now, and though Xigbar had originally fully intended to spend the evening in the waiting room, happy tapping on the ornate fish tank and making the guppies and goldies positively paranoid, he somehow found himself crammed in a very small room, very full of very many people. He was aware of a great amount of yowling on Thursday's part, a fair amount of squealing on Kairi's part, and a few audible moans and groans bubbling up from Roxas' mouth as he watched his once manly cat spill babies out onto the examination table. There were four kittens total, some atrocious mix of Thursday's coon-cat roots and a feral wood wanderer who she must have picked up one night in heat.

The result was questionable. Kairi was the only one to coo and aww at the squirming balls of life before them, and even her voice snagged and died mid-sound when she caught sight of the _one_ cat.

The cat that had come out third.

The cat that had four ears.

Everyone was thinking it, but for a good thirty seconds or so, no one was saying it. It was finally Roxas who uttered the question—more to the vet than anyone else—for the idea that so many things could go so horrifically wrong in one day was something that needed the affirmation of a specialist. An expert. "What's wrong with that one?" he whispered.

Studying the thing a moment, poking at it with a Latex-lined finger, the vet did his noble duty of stating the ever-present obvious. "Ah… it's… a mutation. It's… not _very_ common, but… it happens. They're just secondary ears—little stubbly ones behind the first pair. It's not… that bad."

"…What the _hell_ is _that_?" Xigbar asked next.

And Kairi was all up at her woeful arms, petting the little monster with two fingers, crooning, "Poor, poor little thing!"

And Roxas was wondering what the hell he'd done to deserve God's hate.

And Luxord—_Luxord_ was the only one to not react, to not act at all for another few moments. He was taking in the cat. What little fur it had was squished about all wrong on its head, creating a little bald spot the size of a pin head, around from which a crown of short, stubbly fur sprouted rather unevenly—the color of week old oranges dropped in a puddle of mud. Really, the kitten could have passed as a runty, balding, four-eared monk of olden times, but it was not this fact that surprised everyone. No, on the contrary, what surprised everyone was when Luxord finally did speak up, when Luxord finally did say: "Roxas, can we have that one?"

Everyone turned and stared at him. He looked unnaturally pleased standing there, mouth slightly agape, lips threatening to split wide in a grin. There was something completely and utterly remarkable about having four ears! Why, a cat like that could hear _twice_ as well, for sure—pick up _twice_ the info that any normal, ruddy-duddy two-eared cat could. And even if that doubly-picked-up noise was no good to human ears, think of the enlightenment it'd give to the cat! Think of the glory—having a cat with twice the hearing capabilities of any other cat in town! It even beat the Honor Roll Student bumper stickers out by a long shot. 'Proud Owner of Four-Eared Cat.' Luxord would put it on his Saab—a car he'd swore would never bear the mark of any unsavory, trashy little stickers or signs.

But for the cat with four ears? Oh, _fuck yes_.

Roxas was staring at him as though Luxord had up and decided to sprout another set of ears himself, on his own unnatural terms. "I, uh… I dunno. D-Do you really want it?" he asked.

"Yes. Yes I do. I drove you here."

"I know you did and I really thank—"

"So I can have it?" he asked again. Xigbar watched with growing interest as Luxord got closer to the table, reached out with one hand and prodded the kitten experimentally, just to see what it would do. It did nothing. "What is it, by the way?" he asked. "So we don't have another male pregnancy on our hands in the future."

"Who is this plural you're speaking of?" Xigbar suddenly asked. He already knew. And he knew he already knew before he asked, but… he just had to ask. It was just one of those tragic _things_ in life.

"You 'n me, Xig! We'll raise the cat together."

"…Um."

"I can't keep it, of course. Larxene's allergic to cats. So he'll have to stay with you for a little while, until, you know, we move out, and then it'll come with us—naturally. I don't think your parents'll have a problem with it because you used to have a cat when you were six, you once said, and then it kept clawing the bejesus out of you so it had to give it up. But, if we raise this one to be a brilliant, socially minded cat, no clawing mishaps will occur. Not to mention your stepddad'd bend over backwards for you. He'd probably give you a cat if you asked for one, anyway."

"Are you serious?"

"Of course he is. He's an kind-hearted, virtuous member of society who picks people up when they need to be picked up." Kairi was grinning and Xigbar really wanted to kick her, but knew that to do so wouldn't be very chivalrous of him. Or… _virtuous, _for that matter. Since it seemed to be such a stupidly important trait.

And so it was that Luxord had decided, and if one thing about Luxord had never—would never change—it was that once he'd decided on something, he was—and would remain—completely and fully decided on it. With every ounce of romantic zeal, zest, and vigor within in body, he ceremoniously placed his thumb on the crown of the lame cat, proudly stating: "I dub thee cat _Virtue_."

"Are you _serious_?" Xigbar asked again, starting to sound like a broken record.

"That's almost as bad a name as Thursday."

"It's a male," the vet proclaimed.

"Are you sure this time?" Roxas asked.

"Yes, I'm quite sure."

"He'll be our mascot, Xig. I'm sure Sherlock had one."

"Uh. Yeah. A _bloodhound_, maybe."

"It has four ears."

"Yes. We know. …_So_?"

"I have this strong, paternal feeling welling up within me."

"Oh lord."

"I might feel a tear coming on."

"Maybe you're allergic."

"No, that was just a speck of dust."

It was agreed, then, that Luxord and Xigbar would take custody of Virtue in a little over a month, at the start of Winter Break. That way, they all figured, Virtue would have plenty of time to adjust to his new environment in the constant presence of Father Luxord and Father Xigbar, as Kairi had so taken to calling them. Xigbar instantly found himself regretting his decision not to kick her around a little earlier.

On the ride home, there wasn't much conversation. The sky was already dark, and even for a Friday night, it had seemed to rob Kairi and Roxas of all the energy they'd had. Roxas stared glumly out the back window, no doubt mourning the loss of his one shot at that concert, which had started half an hour ago without him. In his head, it was the even of a lifetime he was missing out on, his one chance shot straight to hell. Beside him, Kairi was already drifting in and out of sleep, unconsciously stroking Thursday's belly, the towel-lined box of kittens at her feet.

To pull himself out of his own misery, Roxas tore his attention away from the sad window, looked towards the front of the car, and directed his question at Xigbar. "So what's all this detective stuff you guys are on about?" he asked.

"Huh? Oh… uh." Xigbar glanced over towards Luxord, who already had his mouth half-open, ready to issue a response if Xigbar ducked out—which he no doubt would. As if it all couldn't have gone any worse, he figured. Now Luxord would have more people interested in the letter, more people in on what had before been just a secret project kept between the two of them. Sharing Luxord would no doubt mean losing Luxord in the end, because Xigbar had come to realize—with no means of resentment or bitterness, mind you—that the world was full of people far more interesting and far more capable than he ever would be.

It was the way he'd made himself out to be, and it was still the way he wanted to be. It was just that being that way often came at the cost of being obscure and distant. And usually, those weren't costs at all. But when it came to Luxord, somehow they were.

"It's an inside joke, kiddies," Luxord said then. "Nothing but smut, really. You wouldn't think it was funny if we told you. Better just to keep it on the _sly_, right Xig?"

"…Yeah. Right," he said.

And Roxas didn't press the issue at all.

(x) (x) (x)

I know this was an ungodly long chapter, but I am snowed in. I'm also an overachiever and can't fail my damned classes even if I _try_, it's so bad. So I'll just sit my dorm room, starve all day, and write. And feel sorry for myself because it is _still_ snowing and I am still, at the end of the day, very, very cold.

Anyway. Stay safe, stay warm, stay good, kids.


	4. Bubbles From Baby Pool

**How To Do Nothing At All**

'Bubbles From Baby Pool'

Sunday afternoon, Xigbar was sitting at his desk with his statistics book lying open, notebook beside it, doodles in the margin. He was deeply immersed in a rather sloppy illustration of a large-breasted girl being hit with what appeared to be a pogo-stick, so he didn't notice his stepfather until the guy had gone and stuck his rather large, fat head in his doorway, scraggly face peering around the wood.

"Xiggy, that you?" he asked. Frankly, this was a dumb question. Not only did it make perfect sense for Xigbar to be the sole occupant of the hole known as Xigbar's Room, but it was also rather difficult to mistake Xigbar for anybody else, even from behind.

"Yeah, Kurt."

"Can I come in?"

"Uh. Sure."

Kurt did. He came on in, sat on Xibar's bed, and proceeded to shift and change between about five different sitting positions, clearly at a loss at to which one was appropriate for the given situation. He was going for something friendly, laid-back and open. What he got was one leg bent over the other at an awkward angle and his left arm jutting off of that like a skier clear off a trick ramp. Xigbar stared. He thought he had something to ask Kurt, but the little shifty-shift performance had gone and made him lose his train of thought.

"Hey, listen, I've got some pretty exciting news," said Kurt.

"Oh, uh, okay." _Ah, now I remember. _"Can I have a cat?"

"Wh…huh?"

"It's a long story, but my friend's cat had kittens and… I… want one. Can I have it?"

Kurt blinked. He leaned on his arm and almost ended up falling into his own lap—yes, it's entirely possible—for awkward angles were never much for supporting weight. Almost any simple-minded architectural engineer could tell you as much. But Kurt made a fine recovery by turning the sudden dive forward into a close examination of his right shoe, the lace of which had come undone. Xigbar watch with some very, very small degree of amusement as his stepfather continued downward to tie it, all the while mumbling a few incoherent words and noises—"Mm, ah, er, uh… s'pose… well… after all… murrh… uh…"

Xigbar cleared his throat. "For Christmas or something?" he asked further.

"Well… I thought you hated cats."

"Nope."

"Oh. Well. I mean. Alright, I guess. We'll have to get some things taken care of and all, but I know your mother would love to have a cat in the house again and, I mean, I like them well enough, so… Yeah. Alright."

"Thanks."

"Anyway, Xigbar, uh. About that news I had."

"Yeah?"

"You remember that colleague of mine, Nancy?"

"Mmhm."

Nancy was difficult to forget because she had this _way_ of always holding the worst holiday open houses and always inviting Xigbar's whole, accursed family (along with the rest of the east coast population, it seemed), lavishing them all with evenly distributed portions of volatile beverages, gingerbreads, and fruitcakes. None sat well in the stomach. Neither did Nancy's appearance. She was rather like a frozen and thawed Bride of Frankenstein with hair just a shade this side of strawberries.

She was also Roxas' adoptive mother, but _that_ is another story best saved for later.

"Well, her cousin-in-law just set up a practice in town. He's a cosmetic surgeon," Kurt was saying.

"Uh. Cool?" In actuality, Xigbar saw nothing _cool_ about this and was fixing Kurt with that sort of bored stare he always seemed to reserve specifically for his doting stepfather. Kurt couldn't have known that that was also the look Xigbar dished out to various teachers and other figures of authority, though, and so he assumed—quite tragically—that his stepson hated him with a burning, fiery passion that lurked somewhere beneath that half-lidded gaze.

The truth of the matter, and you should probably know this, is that Xigbar didn't hate Kurt at all. Sometimes he even found Kurt just slightly short of hilarious. He just happened to regard him with the same bored look with which he regarded a whole _lot_ of people.

Unfortunately oblivious, Kurt blundered on. "Yeah, so," he said. "She uh. She said if you wanted, she could maybe… pull some strings."

"Huh?"

"You know. Maybe get your eye taken care of."

"…What's wrong with it?"

The slight jump of the pulse and a sudden sweating of the palms are two of the body's critical warning signs that it puts out to let the world know when someone's gone and fucked up. And Kurt's pulse was suddenly rather fast and his palms were veritable Niagras dripping onto Xigbar's shag rug. He suddenly had quite a bit of difficulty speaking, and so when he talked his voice was horse and squeaky like a mouse who'd had a rough night of it.

"Well, I… I mean, nothing, but. You know. I just thought maybe you'd be interested is all. Having—having the patch on and all, you can alter your vision over time and, well, if, you know, you don't use the other eye, it'll go bad."

"It already _is_ bad," Xigbar said.

"Well, I know, but they can make it… good." Only met by another one of Xigbar's passive, blank stares (though this time the eyebrow over the patched eye was definitely raised in skepticism), Kurt began grabbing futily at what he thought were topics of good an reassuring nature, but which only ended up being forks to stab in Xigbar's already delicate sense of self.

"And maybe… do something about your ears, I don't know. I haven't talked to them yet about that—just about the—"

Luxord had once told Xigbar—years and years ago, mind you—that his slightly pointed ears were quite elfin, and therefore, quite exotic and alluring. And years after that, Xigbar figured out what exotic and alluring meant and was reasonably certain that Luxord himself hadn't known the words' meaning when he'd up and blabbed them out. Xigbar was as far from exotic and alluring as he was far from being elfin—that much was for sure. But still, the thought of having perfectly normal, round ears seemed like something of a tremendous letdown, a ridiculous hoax that would no doubt lead to the unraveling of Xigbar's entire character.

"…What's wrong with my ears?"

"Nothing! No, no, nothing, I—Xigbar, I'm not trying to change you or anything like that! It's just that your mother and I were talking and, well, we thought maybe you might be excited to try it? Just to see if it works for you?"

"Uh, the thing about surgery? It's kind of hard to undo. It either works and it's great or it doesn't and it's permanently…_not-great_." Xigbar wondered if there was a synonym for "not-great" that he just wasn't tapping into. Meanwhile, Kurt plowed forward into the land of idiocy and Xigbar watched the panic unfold with a continuously empty expression.

"I was just suggesting it, Xiggy, I mean—_if you want!_ Your mother thought maybe… you could go to, to an… _appointment_. Just meet the doctor, see how it goes, maybe ask some questions, voice some concerns." Beads of sweat were forming around Kurt's hairline—his fingers had gone and fiddled themselves into a colossal knot squished hopelessly between two palms and two wrists alike, and when he dared to look at Xigbar once more, his eyes (the color of mud puddles) were large, sympathetic, and very much like that of a confused, troubled puppy.

"So… basically you think I look like a freak and are offering me some kinda… _out_ from that?" Xigbar then asked, purely for clarification purposes.

"Now, w-wait a second, I never said—!"

"Sure."

"…Sure?"

"I said sure, whatever. I don't have any questions. Just do whatever."

"Well, but Xigbar, if you don't want to do it, you don—"

"I want to do it. Just pick a day to roll me in and I'll go quietly."

"You don't sound very excited…"

"'Gee whiz, _Dad_, I sure am overjoyed. Boy I can't wait to be the next big thing over there at that beloved school of mine."

"…You don't have to call me 'Dad' if you don't wan—"

"I was joking."

"Okay. Well." Kurt seemed at a loss for words. Xigbar knew better. Behind the thick skull of the man's head, he was rifling through all his step-parenting manuals he'd ever perused, in search of the proper closure for their groundbreaking conversation. And he found it. Fortunately. Xigbar wasn't sure how much more he could take.

"I'm glad we had this talk," said Kurt.

"_Me too_," said Xigbar, who was gladder that the talk was over than he was glad that it had come about at all.

"I'll tell your mother to make the appointment," Kurt continued.

"Alllrighty." Xigbar nodded. _Get out of my room now… _

"Do you just… want the first available day?"

"You betcha."

"I'm glad."

"**Yep**." It took two more piercing grins and a few more yep's, uh-huh's, and of course's to get Kurt out and on his merry, paternal way. Closing the door behind him, Xigbar was hit by the strong urge to bash his cranium against the painted wood surface of the thing until he blacked out for the rest of the evening. So he hit his head once, twice, but didn't push it to the extent of a blackout because he started to realize that hitting one's head against solid surfaces not only does nothing to solve problems, but also begins to hurt rather badly after a few tries. "Jesus," he muttered, bruised forehead against the door. As if on cue, his cell phone rang.

"Yeah," he answered.

"Xigbar, dude. What the hell? Where were you last night?"

"Heyyy, Demyx. Listen man, I have the _wildest_ story for you." _About gender-bending cats and abandoned teenage girls running amok on the streets and policemen with obscure accents who have a thing for maple frosted donuts._

"_Really_? Because I have one, too. Mine goes like: **SO THERE I WAS**, all ready to go have a freakin' awesome time with all my best buddies and I _get_ there and I'm _stoked_ and there's _nobody there_. Oh sure, there's a shitload of people **there**, yeah, but not anyone I **know**, or anyone I really wanted to **go** with me."

"Dem, hey, look, I—"

"And it such a _sweet_ concert, too, man. I mean, I seriously hope you regret not going—you do, right?—because it was just **perfect**. But you know what _really_ rubs me is the fact that I bought you the tickets. I mean, duh, you paid me back, but seriously—if you didn't want to go, I didn't have to buy them. Now you're fifteen-bucks-and-one-amazing-concert short of where you should be."

"Demyx."

"Of course, I thought maybe you'd be generous and give the ticket away or whatever if you were gonna bail on me, yanno. Pull a move like Axel. Only with Axel, I mean, that's just slightly more understandable, 'cause he had a date. Not that I'm doubting your skills man, but if you had a date, I'm pretty damn positive you'd have told us all. So if you didn't have a date and you were just sitting around at—"

"Demyx, that's just it. I _did_ give the ticket away."

"You did? …To who?"

"To Roxas."

"_Roxas_! Man, I _love_ that kid. But. Uh. He wasn't there."

"I know he wasn't there—he was with me."

"Xig, you're defeating the purpose, man."

"No, he was going to go. I mean. He really, really wanted to go, Dem. You have no idea." _Really. You don't._ "And so I gave him my ticket because I had plans that night, but then his cat was pregnant and started delivering, so he had to go… to the delivery. And he needed a ride, so we swung by and gave him a ride."

"…But. Dude. Thursday's a—"

"Nah, he's actually apparently a she."

"Well. That's weird."

"Yeah, that was pretty much the whole day. Weird." "Did you ever figure out who Axel had that date with?"

"No, man. I've been calling him all freakin' day and he hasn't picked up once."

"Well shit, I just can't imagine why not." The reality of the situation was that it was _very_ easy to imagine why Axel would dodge Demyx's calls. Truth of the matter was, Xigbar would do the exact same thing in his position—what with constant, unending harassment about his personal life and square ass, Axel's new antisocial tendencies were perfectly understandable, to say the least.

Demyx, however, did not seem to understand this.

"I_know_, right? God, he's being such a pansy."

"Dude. Frickin'… _sarcasm_, man," Xig said.

"Sarcasm? Since when does Axel **not** want to confide in me anyway? I'm his best friend!"

"No, actually, I think Roxas is."

"Well, best friends are for girls anyway!"

This statement was followed by a rather long, rather uneasy silence, during which Xigbar heard some rather strange little noises coming through the phone. After checking his reception (full bars, all the way), he furrowed his brow. The sound kept on.

"…Dem."

"What?"

"Did you like… stub your toe or somethin'? 'Cuase if you did, man. You're an idiot."

"I didn't stub my toe."

"Well you sure as shit ain't _cryin'_, are ya?"

"**No**!_No_, I'm not **crying**, I—_God_, Xigbar, you're dumb. Why the heck would I cry over Axel? He's skinny, bony, wiry, rude, loud, obnoxious, and tries to blow shit up all the frickin' time."

Now this was also true, and the more he had these traits of his friends pointed out to them, the more Xigbar got to wondering why the hell all these deranged people were really his friends in the first place. The excuse was obvious enough for Axel: "His illegal fireworks are the bomb at every part, though," said Xigbar.

"Haha, that's so funny, s'cuse me while I piss my pants with laughter."

"Don't be sick."

"You're sick. You sick kid."

Of course, coming up with an excuse for Demyx's friendship proved to be a bit more difficult.

"Hardly. You're the one crying over Axel. I mean. _Axel_, of all people, Demyx."

"Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold the phone."

"I_am_."

"No. Stop that. _Whoa_. Okay? Just hold up. I **don't** have a thing for Axel."

"Everybody apparently does," Xigbar muttered.

"Well then it's everybody _but me_, 'cause I sure don't." At that precise moment, Demyx snorted rather nastily and promptly flung out his free hand, closing it around the little plastic frame of he and Axel from the third grade that stood lonely on his desk, surrounded by old candy wrappers, dirty plates, and week-old homework that still sat half-finished. Around the edge of the frame it proudly declared: _Best Friends Forever!_ with some appropriate crayon-doodled smiley faces and loopy swirls. Demyx came within five inches of pitching the thing into the trash can, but ended up just waving it in the air, stifling some sound somewhere within him that he knew would get him _nowhere_ with Xigbar.

"Get over it. I was kidding," said Xig.

"Whatev's," said Dem.

Xigbar let out a sigh. Once the sigh was let out, of course, he wondered what had caused it. Exasperation? There was a good chance of that, but at the same time, he didn't feel quite exasperated. He felt tired, and terribly, pathetically _off_ somehow.

"Hey listen Dem, I got some shit to do. I'll see you tomorrow, alright?"

"I thought you had something to tell me? More about your exciting weekend adventures that involved ditching Demyx, right?"

"I'll just tell you tomorrow. Then Roxas can fill in where necessary with all the gory details. It'll be a regular…. fuckin'… tea party."

"I'm down."

"Annnd I'm out."

"Later Xig!"

"Later."

x x x

Unbeknownst to Xigbar, Demyx was very, very annoyed with him when 'tomorrow' rolled around, because Xigbar actually wasn't _in_ school 'tomorrow'. When he'd said he'd fill him in on everything at school, he'd completely forgotten that he was skipping out with Luxord—a task almost tragically easy to accomplish because his mother was all too happy to hear her son proclaim that Luxord was giving him a lift that morning and would be driving him home in the afternoon as well. She'd always had a thing for that boy. Xigbar was sad to admit (which is probably why he never _did_ admit) that so much of her affection revolved around Lux's charming accent.

The Starbucks our strapping heroes arrived at was really quite like every other Starbucks this side of anything. Dark on the outside, bold and… still dark on the inside, rather smelling like burnt java beans. The two got their black coffees, and Luxord felt the sudden urge to purchase six muffins, and eat them all, one by solitary one, as they waited for some sort of sign to tell them what the hell they were doing there.

"I think I need to purge," he eventually got to saying. This was accompanied by a quiet little burp and whimper.

"Nobody told you to eat them," Xigbar informed him.

"I_know_ nobody told me to eat them. They just looked so damn appealing." Luxord was draped over the coffee table, staring lethargically at the empty paper bag in front of him, once a bearer of muffins and good tidings—now a symbol of indigestion and discomfort. He moved to crumple it up with one hand, but in doing so he unleashed another waft of muffin-odor, which promptly made him gag and turn a little greener. Rolling his eyes over to where Xigbar sat silhouetted against the window, Luxord half said, half groaned: "You'd think he would have told us that every employee at this Starbucks appears to be female."

There was some definite truth to this statement. According to Wakka, Yuna worked right there, at that very Starbucks, on that very shift. And every staff member currently showing their merry little faces was not only female, but also wickedly, horribly attractive—the kind of attractiveness that provokes hatred and resentment among others of their own finer sex.

"Well," Xigbar said after a moment, "you're a pretty ballsy guy. It's not like you have trouble talking to the ladies."

"I never said I _did_. But feeling bloated lowers my confidence."

"Does it now?"

"Of course it does, Xig. Common sense." As if issuing its own murmur of agreement, Luxord's stomach let out a little gurgle.

"What, are you like… afraid you're going to burp in the middle of a sentence or something?"

"Crude."

"Not as crude as I could be."

"I mean, they don't even have _nametags_." A blatant change of subject, but Xigbar let it slide with all the ease he was capable of.

"Well, he said she was pretty, didn't she?" he asked.

"…No. No, actually I don't think he did. But I see how you could infer that—they're all pretty." Luxord had gone and discovered a newspaper left behind by some earlier Starbucks-goer, and was doing the crossword with some stub of a pencil he'd found on the floor. Xigbar decided not to point out that "Fabio" was not, in fact, a five letter word meaning "magnificent"—instead turning his attention to the rest of the café, watching girls wipe down tables, watching the last old man bustle out the door with a dopey grin intact.

"We skipped school for this?" he asked.

Not bothering to look up from his puzzle, Luxord said: "Would you rather be doing calculus?" and then frowned, erased whatever the heck it was he'd just put down, and muttered something foul under his muffin-scented breath.

"I only made it to stats, man," Xigbar reminded him.

"Exactly my point."

"That didn't really have much to do with your point."

"Would you lay off already? Why don't _you_ talk to them?"

"Because. I'm fuckin' _bad_ at it."

"Oh honestly," said Luxord. He was either impatient, constipated, or otherwise ill-tempered. "You're speaking perfect American English," he said, "It's not that hard. They'll understand you. If they don't, just remember: when they start giving you funny looks, say something rather classy, like, 'Je neh parlezz pass Englaiss, jeh swuis desolee, mamoiselle.' It'll get 'em every time. Not only is it an excuse as to why you sound a tad_craplike_, but it's also sexy because it's French."

Terrible French, at that.

"…You… haven't used that tactic, have you, Lux?"

"Of_course_ I have. I've practically copyrighted the thing—my patent is pending as we sit here speaking. It comes in handy when you're drunk and don't want the strangers to know." The way silence followed this little statement, Xigbar figured he should just take Luxord at his word. His poorly-phrased, curiously constructed word.

"…Right."

And yet whatever magic it was that Luxord possessed made itself apparent in the next two seconds. One of the Starbucks ladies made her chipper way over—pulled out a chair, sat on down, and pushed her large, blonde ponytail back over her shoulder where it apparently belonged. She was more startlingly beautiful up close, with impossibly wide green eyes and flashy teeth that were probably white enough to rival the fine china in Xigbar's cabinet at home.

"Heya gents!" she went. "I couldn't help but overhear your conversation, so I decided to come lend a hand!" Both boys stared very blankly at her, though Luxord at least managed to pull on a somewhat intelligent looking smile after a few seconds. Xigbar, however, continued to stare blankly and stupidly—not so much because she was very pretty, but rather, because her hair was very intricately braided. Rather like braided spider legs with pony beads at the ends.

The girl blinked. "You don't have to be shy about talking to pretty girls. How old are you guys anyway?"

"Twenty," Luxord said.

"Twentyandahalf," Xigbar blabbed. He made himself want to cringe a little.

But the girl grinned, thoroughly into it, thoroughly into the conversation—which Xigbar would admit he found rather strange. "Sweet! I'm Rikku! Great to meetcha!" she went. And then, turning to Luxord, she jabbed a finger at the empty bag in front of him, meanwhile displaying the typical set of amazing, feminine skills, such as mind-reading and speed-talking. "Hey, did you eat all those buy yourself? You didn't even share with him? Man, you're so selfish! I don't wanna talk to you anyway. Just kidding. Right, so, what's up?"

Again, Luxord was the first to regain control of his mental facilities, such as they were. "Uh, we're looking for… someone named Yuna?"

"Yunie?" she went.

"…Is that her name?" he asked.

"Sure is! **HEY, YUNIE**! Come over here, huh?" From behind the counter came yet another girl, similar to the first, but slightly saner in appearance. She was sweeter and simpler—short brown hair, a heart-shaped face that rather reminded Xigbar of a box of Valentine candies. "This is…"

"Uh. Xigbar."

"Luxord."

"Hello?" Yuna smiled. The awkwardness in the air was just about thick enough to be at a suffocating consistency.

Luxord appeared to snap back into his role—whatever that was—and addressed the situation in a quick one-two second look over. Obviously, this Yuna girl was weirded out. It took quite a bit to weird Luxord out, so he was rather put off that she reached that state so easily. But then again, he figured, she was a woman, and women were strange things in a constant state of mental motion. Their minds were like pendulums, he figured, and if you happened to be standing in the wrong spot at the wrong moment in time, the swinging thing would take you out, no questions asked.

And so, he did the most normal thing he could to put it all back in balance. He told the truth. At least. That was how he started. "Alright, alright, I know. It's weird. But. We just…you know your friend Wakka?"

"Of course I know Wakka. He's practically my brother. Are you friends of his?"

"…Distant friends, in a way, I guess…" said Luxord.

"We shared coffee and donuts," said Xigbar, ever helpful.

"That's it. Anyway, our meeting was kind of a long story and I don't want to intrude on your work hours and all that, _sooo_…"

"There's really no one here. It's alright." Xigbar and Luxord glanced around the room in unison. Aside from Rikku and some other girls who had congregated in the back of the café, the place really was completely empty. Even the expensive travel mugs on the sale shelf looked a little lonely.

"Well anyway, like I was saying, the thing is, see, Xig and I came across a certain document of a certain nature at a certain place and, well, it doesn't belong to us and we—being the good citizens we are—felt the need to return the object to its rightful owner." Luxord paused and took a very well-timed sip of his coffee.

"Um. …Am… am I supposed to guess what you're talking about?" Yuna asked.

Luxord choked a little and put the coffee back down. "You don't know what it is?" he asked her.

"Not at all," she said. Yuna had the kind of face that couldn't pass off a lie any more than a tub of ice cream could pass off as a walrus. Sad, but true. Undeniably true.

"It's a piece of paper. A love letter," Xigbar chimed in.

Luxord tried to kick him under the table, but missed and just stubbed his toe on the iron post of the damn thing instead. So he just scowled and muttered and said something a little mean, but not quite cruel like: "Way to blow it, Xig."

"What? Just come out and say it already, I mean…"

"A love letter? How sweet," Yuna went.

"Uh, uh, it's not from u-us." Xigbar cleared his throat and tried again. He thought of taking a sip of coffee, but thankfully realized that a mouthful of beverage wasn't really conducive to excellent conversational skills. "I mean. We found it, is all. And we're trying to get it wherever it's supposed to be."

"Well, doesn't it say on there who it's to?" she asked.

"Nope. No names at all. Just the mysterious writer, X," said Luxord.

"So it's not yours then?" Xigbar asked her.

"No. I'm sorry. Why'd you think it was mine?"

Luxord and Xigbar exchanged the briefest of looks. Obviously, each was wondering if the other believed that completely releasing their source and all their information was the right thing to do. After a few seconds' thought, Xigbar sent out a definite "_NO_" message via look and brainwave, though by the time he'd gone and done it, Luxord was already blabbing out the entire story. Xigbar sighed and drank his drink in silence.

"Well, we just… we talked to Wakka and he's in charge of security for the old mattress store and everything. _Was_ in charge of the security, that is. The burned down store's where we found the note, see. He told us about you and, well, and some other things and we figured we'd try and see if it was yours. He pointed us in your general direction and here we are today."

"I'm sorry. It's sweet of Wakka to think I'd… write a love letter or something… I guess?"

"He thought it was between you and Tidus," Xigbar said. He wasn't entirely focused on the conversation, instead busying himself by ripping his little cardboard coffee cup holder into itty bitty pieces, but he hadn't heard Tidus' name and figured that would be a good way to get a word or two in. A whole two syllables was to be found in the guy's name, after all.

"T-Tidus? You know Tidus?"

Again Xigbar looked up, trying send a message for Luxord to shut the hell up so they could get out of there and go find the real owner of the letter already, but it was about that time that Luxord started up with fibbing, and once Luxord got started, there was really no going back. It was like a pell-mell run downhill.

"Yeah, we're tight," he said.

"W-wh—h—what?"

Seeing that the surprise level on Yuna's face was drastically larger than he'd originally anticipated, Luxord did a brief, awkward backward move, trying to fill in the rather large, blundering blank he'd left in his brilliant plot. He went: "I used to, ah… I mean. He used to babysit me. Us. …Together. As kids. When we were babysat."

"Really? I never knew Tidus babysat," said Yuna, still obviously in some state of shock, seeing as her face was rapidly starting to resemble a maraschino cherry.

"It was a long time ago," Xigbar managed to get out between clenched teeth. He was beginning to wonder how he ever thought it possible that Luxord possessed an ounce of social skill in his body.

"That's so cute…" And then, almost shyly, Yuna asked, "Is he good with kids?"

"Very," said Xig, in a tone he hoped would bring an end to that part of the conversation.

"Shockingly so," said Lux, in a tone that only invited more questions and curiosity. And then to make matters worse, he absolutely felt the need to tack on, "And I mean that in a very nonsexual way."

"What?"

"Luxord is just kidding!" _ And as soon as all this is finally said and done, I'm going to hang him from his bedroom window by his goddamn earlobes. _"Yeah. Tidus was freakin' awesome."

"Best male babysitter we've ever had."

"Are you two brothers then?" Yuna asked.

"…N-no, do we look related?" It wasn't so much the fact that Yuna had—for however short a time—been mistaken into assuming that Xig and Lux were in any way at all related, but it was more the fact that Yuna wasn't understanding that the entire story she was being immersed in was a complete and total lie that really, truly got to bothering Xigbar. He considered just opening his mouth good and wide and delivering the news: _You've been duped!_ but was tragically cut off as Luxord slid one elbow up and onto the table, propping up his chin in one hand, and recreating a childhood they'd never really had.

"We were just neighbors as kids. …Caused a true, blue ruckus throughout the neighborhood."

Alright, well, that part of the childhood story was actually true.

"I'm surprised Tidus never mentioned us to you—we were a pretty defining point in his early youth."

There was the lie. Xigbar began to wonder if God—assuming the big man was up there and watching—was kind enough to grant short-notice favors, such as, say, dropping a two ton weight on Xigbar's fat head so he wouldn't be forced to listen to any more of Luxord's insane dribble. Better yet—dropping a two ton weight on _Luxord's_ head so Xigbar wouldn't be forced to listen to any more of his insane dribble. Either, or.

"Sure were. A good job. A stable source of income," Lux went. "Also not meant in a sexual way."

"_Would you cut that out_?" Xigbar hissed. Yuna blinked rather owlishly at the pair of them and Xigbar cleared his throat. "Uhhh… Tidus was cool," he said. "He digs you, yanno."

_Suave, thy name is Xigbar. God__**damn**__, but I'm an idiot_, he thought.

"Wh—he does?" Yuna blinked. "I."

And that was really all she managed to say. _'I.'_ Because somehow that one letter, word, syllable, what-have-you—carried with it astounding meaning that spread out from her throat where the sound was birthed and onto her lips and filled the room, so that every occupant (all five of them) turned and stared. Yuna's face took on a pinkish hue. She wondered what she'd done to deserve this.

Perfectly frank and completely oblivious to looks of those behind the counter, Luxord leaned back in his seat, one arm loosely hanging over the armrest, bending and rising to cradle his chin, which he proceeded to rub idly in a most scholarly and thoughtful manner. He was saying to Yuna: "That's why Wakka figured maybe you two were finally starting to explore deeper waters, if you know what I mean." Dropped her a wink, shot her a smile. "Getting out of the baby pool, moving in past your ankles," he said. "Not, perhaps, getting in up to your neck, but at the very least getting _somewhere_. At least into the big kid pool, if that makes much of any sense at all."

Yuna hung her head ever so slightly, eyes downcast and voice dripping with something that Luxord and Xigbar awkwardly realized was _misery_. "No," she said, "I haven't spoken to Tidus since last week when he came in and asked for a vente espresso."

"Is vente the big one or the little one?" Luxord then asked.

"It's the big one—the talls are the littles, the grandes are the mediums."

"This is all very confusing," he told her.

"Tell me about it," she said.

"So if the letter's not yours, who the hell's is it?" Xigbar mused aloud, not because he was overly curious, but simply because Luxord was doing all the talking, like Luxord always did, and Xigbar was beginning to get the rather ticklish, curious sensation from the base of his toes to the nape of his neck that he was becoming _completely invisible._

"Patience is a virtue, my dear Xiggeraut," Luxord replied. "We'll reach the bottom of this."

"Did you just call me a fu—?"

"Don't curse in front of ladies—it's bad form."

"Bad form, my—"

"As my charming friend here was saying, Yuna, yes, Tidus really is quite fond of you. Has been for as long as either of us can remember." Luxord grinned.

"But I only met him when I entered college."

…Luxord frowned. "…Well don't you keep in close and personal contact with the children you babysat when you were younger?" he asked somewhat demandingly.

Yuna actually took a few good moments to think this one over. Then she replied, "No, not really."

"Well there's still absolutely nothing sexual about this entire scenario, I assure you."

"Luxord."

"I'm just spreading the good will and information."

"_Luxord_."

"Right. Well." Luxord cleared his throat, brining his two thumbs and two index fingers together in a steeple shape, towering over the coffee table with quite a religious fervor. He said, "Point is, you should put the moves on this Tiddly boy before he gets frustrated and belly flops into the big kid pool all on his lonesome, no doubt resulting in some serious head trauma and possible paralysis. Nothing is worse than feeling insecure, and there's no more surefire way to feel insecure than to dodge around a romantic interest with no movement and no resolve from either end."

It might have been because Luxord actually sounded reasonably confident in the bullshit he was spouting, or it might have been because he was Luxord and—having recovered somewhat from the muffin epidemic—he was regaining his charisma skills at a rapid and impressive rate. Whatever the cause, Xigbar watched with some degree of horror as Yuna's eyes took on a strange little glow and went all alit and shiny with some sickeningly sweet emotion, vaguely reminiscent of_hope_.

"_Really_?" she went. "You think so?"

"I know so for a sure and definite fact. Good to know this letter isn't yours, now that I think about it. I'm sure that an attractive, sweet female like yourself would never stoop to such an immature level as a pithy little piece of paper."

Yuna leaned forward ever so slightly in her chair, making her and Luxord look like two conspirators plotting the downfall or uprising of some great hoo-hah or other, leaving Xigbar to be the sole, sad witness of the whole ordeal.

"So what should I do?" she asked Lux.

"Next time he stops by for an overly large-sized shot of caffeine, tell him when you're off for the day. Ask if he wants to swing by and you two can go out somewhere," he told her.

"But…"

"But what? What's wrong with it?"

"Isn't he supposed to do the asking?"

"Yumie, it's like—"

"It's Yunie. I mean, _Yuna_."

"Yuna, it's like this. There are some men on the face of this good earth who are astoundingly, painfully rude. **So** painfully rude and**so** painfully fresh that they often find themselves getting slapped because of it. But you notice they always have women around them. On the flip side, there are also men in this world who are very sweet and charming individuals who would never treat a lady with an ounce of disrespect. You'll also notice that they probably don't have hordes of the finer sex hanging off their anatomy."

"But… Tidus isn't _that_ polite."

"I never said they didn't come in variations." Luxord cleared his throat. "What I'm _getting_ as here is that if he's a bit slow on the uptake, it's probably just because he doesn't want you assuming he's only interested in you because of…"

"Because of your ass," Xigbar dutifully supplied.

Luxord fumbled around with a few words for a moment, trying to figure out if there was indeed a better way to put it. There wasn't, after all. "Pretty much," he agreed. "To put it crudely, that is."

"I see," said Yuna, rather contemplatively. At least she was innocent enough to have gone pink in the face with blush and embarrassment. Xigbar saw this as a sign that behind the cute face dwelled a good and capable woman who just happened to have some serious relational management issues. Which, Xigbar assumed, was why they were still there. Luxord was still dishing out the advice like he was master of the known dating world, hands making paralleled gestures like they were bound together by some sort of transparent, thin twine.

Whatever it was, it kept Yuna captivated enough. Xigbar just watched with some dull sort of interest as Luxord dutifully outlined the male mind—or at least, his version of it. Xigbar would never admit to half the drabble pouring out from Luxord's lips.

"So the moral of the story is: cut the gent a break," Luxord concluded. "The worst thing that happens is he ends up being gay, and really, that's not so bad because then you'll have a gay best friend, possessing impeccable charm, wit, and sense of style with which to lavish on your otherwise self-styled person."

"Well, that's… that's not so bad, I guess," she confessed after a moment's hasty thought.

"Precisely my point. What have you got to lose?" Luxord asked her.

"Not as much as I thought. Thank you…"

"Luxord."

"Thank you Luxord. And you, too."

Yuna probably never did know Xigbar's name, because Xigbar never really bothered to give it to her again. He was too intent on hauling Luxord's well-mannered and devious rear out the door before Yuna could forget this Tidus kid entirely and become completely enamored with the bearer of all news— be it awkward, good, bad, or evil—Luxord.

The boy in question was only to happy to take on a jaunty walk out of the place, popping the keys in the ignition some moments later and grinning like he could clean cut his face in two with the damn thing. "Did you see the look on her face?" he went. And when there was no response he glanced over at his companion, who sat sullen and slumped against the door as the pulled out of the parking lot. "Xigbar?"

"Which look d'you mean?" Xig asked. "The one that says she was infatuated with you? Well yeah, I saw it, man. Pre-tty hard to miss."

"Infa—_Infatuated_? With dear little _me_? Xiggy, now don't be ridiculous." For whatever reason, Luxord apparently found this notion of Xigbar's completely hilarious, because he wasted the last five seconds of a green light's lifespan laughing hysterically rather than driving the car. So, ground-bound at a red light, Luxord pulled himself together with a suspicious amount of ease. "Seriously," he said. "It wasn't me, Xig. It was that boy. That _beau_ of hers. The Tidus kid—whoever he is."

"Right."

"Hey now, just wait a minute, I'm serious, Xig, I said so!"

"Uh huh."

"Don't uh huh me, I, bu—the—I—she's in love with the Tidus boy!"

"Mm."

"What does that _mean_, huh? '_Mm_.' You sound like you're enjoying a _pastry_, not sulking around my car—which you _**are**_. Couldn't you at least say something appropriate to how you're apparently feeling? Like, oh, I dunno, say, 'Well, Luxord, you're_completely_ right, but I'm in a delirious state of mind right now so everything you're saying is taking on a satanic gleam, casting you in a light of pure evil and deception.' I mean. _That'd_ be wickedly appropriate. Certainly more appropriate that '_Mm_,' for God's sake."

Silence. The idea of a fellow becoming "flustered" took on a whole knew meaning as Luxord's ears pinked a bit and he tried out a few consonant sounds before saying: "Well, aren't you going to say_anything_?"

Xigbar stared out the window. The meaning behind his motion (or the lack thereof) was obvious enough—his answer was no.

"Wonderful. We've graduated to the silent stage. You're as bad as a thirteen year old," Lux growled.

Of course, as in most arguments, there comes a point at which the silent treatment

has to be forfeited in order to make for the lower—yet equally as important—ground of a preserved dignity. And being compared to a thirteen year old… That was just too much. Turning from the window, Xigbar's face pulled a long and solemn expression. He said: "Actually, seeing as I don't have pimples and my voice doesn't crack, I'd say I'm leagues ahead of a thirteen year old."

"You'd like to _think_ that, wouldn't you?"

"I_would_." Xigbar was going to try and sneer or snarl or growl or do something manly and confrontational, but the way Luxord was whipping left and right through traffic and the way Luxord was glaring daggers into the road ahead made Xigbar think for just an itsy bitsy moment that more confrontation might not be the best thing for that moment.

There were several rather long, rather strained moments of silence, in which it really looked like both boys were going to meet their deaths doing seventy in the Saab down the local parkway. Yet just when it seemed to have all blown over, just when their speeds had been reduced to a slightly more tolerable fifty-eight, it became painfully obvious that Luxord was still completely fixated on the topic at hand.

"_Just_ because you managed to skate through puberty with little to no effort doesn't mean it wasn't that easy for all of us, Xig. No need to go all _elitist_ on my ass." It's unlikely this statement had much to do with the argument at hand, but because Xigbar had up and forgotten what it was they were fighting about in the first place, he took hold of this new concept and ran with it—a lopsided, awkward run though it was.

"I wasn't being _elitist_, dude. And don't try to turn the tables and build up pity for yourself, 'cause you didn't skate through puberty—you fuckin' _flew_ through it with a tag team of girls clinging to your dangling shoelaces."

"My shoelaces _never_ dangled."

"Because you wore _Velcro_ up until the seventh grade."

"Alright, now that was—"

"Anyway. Like I was saying. It **was** easy for you, so don't pretend like it wasn't." Just as Xigbar was about to close this particular argument within the record books for good—especially good, because it actually looked as though he'd won—the Saab suddenly veered to the right, bumbling its way onto a gravel pull-off and then coming to a complete and abrupt stop. "…What are we doing?" Xigbar asked.

"Get out." Luxord's seatbelt was already off, his body halfway out the door before Xigbar had managed to process his words. "Come on, Xig, enough of this crap, get out of the car."

Idly, Xigbar wondered if they were going to duke it out roadside style, like from some old western. Only this time with fancy cars and lunch hour traffic. It struck him as a tad troublesome, and not exactly likely to better the still-unstable friendship between the two of them.

So with some slow and confused and slightly saddened voice, Xig said: "You're kicking me out of the _car_?"

"No, I'm getting out _with_ you. We're sorting things out. It's what people do."

For about half a moment, Xigbar got this absolutely genius mental video reeling through his head, featuring him slamming Luxord's door shut, leaping into the driver's seat, and roaring off in a blaze of gravel and dust and victory into the sunset that wouldn't be occurring for another five hours yet. Unfortunately, Luxord had made like a responsible driver and taken his keys with him. Not really having a better plan on hand, Xigbar got out of the car. Closing the door behind him, he saw that Lux had already hopping the guardrail and was, at that moment, loping down a gentle slope, all made of tall, dry grasses and bits and pieces of shrubbery dead for winter's arrival.

After some slight hesitation, Xigbar followed the other boy's initiative. Luxord's path took them beneath towers and twists and twining cords of ropes and wires, a veritable telephone-and-power-line city dwelling some yards above their heads. As Xigbar caught up to Luxord, he took a quick glace at him, discovering a set jaw and steely gaze, the likes of which he couldn't remember ever seeing before.

And after a bit of silence, possibilities started rolling on into Xigbar's head.

"Are you dying? Do you have cancer?" he asked.

"No."

"Because that's the vibe I'm getting."

"I don't have cancer, Xig."

"Are you moving back to the U.K. or something?" he asked.

"Not in the near future, though it has crossed my mind once or twice."

"…Is somebody else dying?"

"No, nobody's dying."

Having quickly run out of his rather short stock of miserable ideas, it was all Xigbar could do to moodily thrust his hands into the pocket of his sweatshirt and ask the obvious. "…So. What's up then?"

"_**Why**__do you think I've got it so damned easy?!" _

A little ways away, a small flock of birds abandoned their tree-perch in a crazed frenzy. It took Xigbar a few moments to get his bearings, but all in all, he was rather glad for Luxord's explosion. Just that little yell seemed to have drained most of the anger and energy away, and his jaw line returned to its naturally relaxed position, his eyes simmered down to their old blue marbles nestled behind his droopy lids.

Xigbar almost smiled, then had to remind himself that he was supposed to be a bit angry. Or frustrated. Or jealous. Or _some_ negative_some_thing.

"Why do I think you've got it _easy_?" he asked. "Uh. _Gee_. Let me count the reasons. You drive a gorgeous car—a girly car, but a gorgeous car—you've never been without a female companion—or more—since you entered that prestigious prep school of yours, you get excellent grades, you never seem to have any work to do yet you're always somehow two steps ahead of me academically and socially—not that I care about that—you've got natural wit, charm, and that damn accent of yours that makes people go completely batshit _crazy_ over you, and to top it all off you're not a complete and total bastard, so it makes it fuckin' impossible to hate you."

Whatever reverse process Luxord's emotions were going through, they'd clearly taken him well beyond the merry median of things, and judging by his slumped shoulders and downer tone, he was right on his way to being another inhabitant of Depresso-ville, home to hobos and the general jobless and loveless alike.

"Well that was all very flattering," he mumbled, "but—"

"In comparison to the likes of me, man. I mean. Come on."

"Wh—bu—you've got it well." His hands were up and parallel again, in front of him and towards his ribs, palms facing up to the cold December sky. "I mean. Look, see? Between the two of us, you're just—you know. Naturally fit," Luxord said. "You could probably eat twelve double chocolate cakes and never bat an eye, and yet you'd still have that slightly muscular physique of yours. And you've got crazily colored eyes—handso—"

"I'm fuckin' disfigured, man."

Now, if we were to briefly psychoanalyze Xigbar with newfangled techniques and alarming amounts of jumped-to conclusions and tacked-on assumptions, we would probably say that Xigbar's display of insecurity in regards to this particular incident is a direct result of his meddlesome stepfather and his good intentions, damn them all to hell. But that would be the conclusion reached by those among us who have never lived in the shadow of a beautiful and talented companion. It's a trifle bit more complex than that in real life. Real life is not psychoanalysis. Please keep that in mind from here on out.

"But." Luxord sighed, realizing he had nowhere left to go in either the topic they were on or the ground they were walking. So he stopped. He said, "Why are we talking about all this anyway? How teenage_girl_ of us."

"Doesn't mean it doesn't matter." Xigbar sat down where they were, directly under one of the spindly metal towers supporting the cords above.

"I didn't know you had such respect for the ladies," Lux told him.

"Yeah… Well. Maybe I do. And yet the only dates I've ever had have been friends of Busty's."

"You mean—"

"Whatever her name is."

"But I thought you had a good time on those."

"_No_. Alright? I mean. I'm a shit date, I know it. Bad conversationalist, bad dancer, and not the least bit attractive. It's not like I _mind_ it most of the time, but when I'm next to you it just gets ten times worse." By this point, Xigbar had built up this strange look that he then gave Luxord, which happened to make the latter very aware that somehow or another, this was all his fault.

"I hope this is liberating for you, because I'm definitely feeling weighed down by misery right about now," Luxord mumbled.

"It's not _liberating_, it's making me feel fuckin' awful."

"So_stop_ talking like that. It's that simple. I wouldn't be friends with you if you were a terrible person, Xig."

"I never _said_ I was a terrible person. It's not like I **suck** at everything, dude. I'm better at surfing than you are, I'm better at swimming than you are, and—let's get right down to it—I am probably a helluva lot more manly now than you'll ever be. I'm not going to slit my wrists and throw myself off a cliff." At this thought, Xigbar tried to picture himself doing any of that, and could only picture a depraved, ponytailed stick-man cutting off his own arms. He raised an eyebrow and tried his damnedest to pull himself away from his mental wanderings. "You were the one who brought it up," he finally settled on saying.

"_**I**_ brought it up?"

"Yeah. Somewhere… along the way."

Luxord had to think about this for a few minutes, obviously, and even though he wasn't entirely sure he _had_ brought it up in the first place, he wasn't about to add another item to the list of arguments they had going for them right then. So he just shrugged. "Well. Maybe. But you took it completely—_not_ the direction I was going with it."

The sound of cars nearby had died down. Lunchtime traffic was over and done with. Xigbar would have to be home in another hour or so if he was to manage any sort of convincing picture for his mother. But, in no big rush, he just leaned back against the metal frame behind him, which was painfully cold, even through the layers Xig wore. Seconds kept ticking past, and so Xigbar simply said, "I hear you can get cancer from sitting under these things long enough," as if to prove his earlier point—Luxord _might_ have cancer.

"I could see that." Luxord looked at his friend for a few good, long moments and sighed. "Xigbar."

"Yeah?"

"Maybe… nobody has it that easy growing up, you know? I mean, I know it all might look fine and good from your side, but…" And he scratched his neck and screwed up his face and looked towards the distant road. And he said, "Maybe it _isn't_, quite."

"Right. There are _thinnngs_ you don't _knowww_ about me. I dig it."

"I don't really think you do."

"Man, this is weird. What are you getting at?"

"Look, do you remember that metaphorical pool I was blathering about back there?"

Xigbar had to search very hard through his short-term memory to stumble across whatever the hell it was Luxord was talking about. And when he came upon it, he was almost tempted enough to snap his fingers and holler something truly obnoxious and embarrassing, like, say, eureka. Instead he just sat good and quiet and played the scene back in the safety of his own head.

"_That's why Wakka figured maybe you two were finally starting to explore deeper waters, if you know what I mean… Getting out of the baby pool, moving in past your ankles. Not, perhaps, getting in up to your neck, but at the very least getting somewhere. At least into the big kid pool, if that makes much of any sense at all."_

"Yeah, I remember," he then said. He kind of wished Luxord knew what a challenge it was to call up random tidbits of conversation like that, but he let it slide in further silence.

Luxord continued, however, still trying to piece together his train of thought in some manner that made sense. He nodded his head, said, "Yes. And how Yunie—Yu—whatever her name is—how she needs to start moving beyond the baby pool into the… the big kid pool and maybe get in a little deeper if she wants to get anywhere."

"Is that what you meant by it? I dunno, I thought the wetness was a sexual pun," Xig confessed.

Luxord stared at him very long and very hard, and when he realized that Xigbar was completely serious, he let out the most exasperated sigh Xigbar had yet heard. "No! No there was no sexual pun! You need to get out the baby pool, Xigbar!"

"What?"

"You tell me you haven't had girlfriends except the one's I've set you up with. Why's that, now?"

"Because girls don't like me, they're not attracted to me, they—"

"No, no, not '_they'_!" Luxord was all but shouting by this point, but it quite obvious that the volume didn't so much come from exasperation anymore as it came from the need to convey an idea and convey it _well_—well enough to stick, and well enough to be completely, totally understood. So Luxord put it in the simplest terms he knew: "The problem isn't _them_! It's _you_!_You're_ in the baby pool!"

"I'm not in your goddamn baby pool," said Xigbar.

"Yes you are—you most certainly are in the goddamn baby pool."

"Well maybe there's not enough room in the big kid pool for me!"

"You're not that big and offensive, you great git."

"Yeah, well you're not so witty and intelligent with your half baked metaphors either."

"That was low. That was cruel and low and I'm deeply offended by it."

"Well ya damn well should be."

"Do you really mean that? Do you really want to hurt my feelings, Xigbar?"

"Oh shut it."

The next thing that came out of Luxord's mouth was neither growl not sigh nor yell, nor was it anything that could really be properly defined by any known English word. It was some bubbly, distressed, angered, and frustrated noise that developed in the back of the throat and moved up through the nose in much the same manner as a sneeze. So I suppose, then, that the best definition I can offer for Luxord's response is an angered sneeze.

"I can't _believe_ you!" he started. "You know? You know what? You're absolutely right. You're absolutely, positively right. You're not in the baby pool. You're _right_. You've drowned in the damn thing. You are a **dead** baby in the baby pool. No saving you now, you worthless, scummy piece of…"

Xig said, "If that was supposed to be a dead baby joke…"

"Do I look jokey?"

Eyes? Angry. Mouth? Also angry. Jawline? Chisled and defined and angry again. No merriment there.

"Um. No?"

"That's probably because I'm not." Luxord asked, "Do you want a girlfriend?"

"What?"

"Xigbar._Do. You want. A girlfriend?"_

"No."

"So… what's _wrong_ with you?!"

Xigbar thought of all the things that were undeniably wrong with him, but none of them seemed to explain his indifference towards the idea of having a girlfriend or not having one. So he shrugged. "Oh, I dunno," he said.

"You're ridiculous."

"Probably."

"You give me the greatest guilt trip over apparently flirting with women, being a royal jackass and stealing all the women away from you, and having the glorious, undying attention of—let me say it again—_all_ the women in the _general_ vicinity—and you don't even _want_ them!"

"Well, I wouldn't _mind_ them, I guess…" _So long as they're not like Kairi. Because there's only enough room in the world for one Kairi, and one Kairi's mad chaos and desperate needs for roadside assistance. So. Women minus Kairi._

Obviously oblivious to Xigbar's own mental ramblings, Luxord made one last attempt, one final stab at teaching Xigbar something from that day and that day's excursions and developments. "Xigbar," he said, in the clearest, calmest tone he could manage right then. "Let me tell you something. And I'm not telling it to you to put you down or make you feel inferior or less experienced."

"But really, that's exactly what you're trying to tell me, isn't it?"

"I told you you were still in the baby pool, I'm leaving it at that. No. What I'm trying to tell you is that men like us don't need women."

"Huh."

"Seriously. When have you ever been presented with an afternoon of good old quality Luxord times and thought to yourself, 'Well this is all very wonderful, but boy I sure would rather be out getting a piece of ass right now'?"

It was with some mild sort of shock that Xigbar did actually think those words through and did actually reach a very real, very disturbing bit of a conclusion.

"I've never thought that," he said.

"Exactly my point. We are of a rare subspecies that doesn't rely on womanly virtues for a good time."

(x) (x) (x)

Whooo… winter break hiatus is over. SO HAVE A LONG CHAPTER!

As always, reviews are so greatly appreciated that by leaving me one, you will instantly graduate from baby pool to big kid pool. Have at thee, please.


	5. Ride The Fence

**How To Do Nothing At All**

'Ride The Fence'

The way Demyx leaned against lockers was truly remarkable. It should be noted here that Demyx didn't often look sexy, mostly because he had a strange taste in hairdos and seemed to have skipped out on the part of puberty where some few, lucky men learn to be charming. But when he leaned against lockers, the world righted itself, the polar icecaps maintained their chill, and for a few just moments, the light struck his face in a way that made him startlingly attractive. And then everything promptly sat up, stood up, and ran straight to hell the very second he opened his stupid, blathering mouth and went, "As my friend Ricky Ricardo once said: Lucy, you got some s'plainin' to do."

Xigbar, who had missed out on Demyx's rare attractive position, looked up from his locker—now closed—and scowled something rather dark and sinister, replying, "Call me Lucy again and you'll have some explaining to do to your mother when you go home with a broken."

"I always _knew_ you were a sorry sonuva bitch..." Demyx muttered. He shot his friend a few looks—one frustrated, the next annoyed, the final one both pleading and curious as he said, "Alright, Xig. Tell you want. I'll bite. I'll ask the question that's bound to be on everyone's wormy little mind in the near future—it's already on mine. What is _up_ with you, man?"

"I dunno. What's up with me?"

"You basically disappear from the record books after school. Like. In these hallowed halls? That's the only time any of us see you anymore. I mean. Even _Zexion_ asked where you went to the other day. _Zexion_, man. Zexion wouldn't even ask questions if the pres' himself suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth, and that's _not_ just because Zex'd probably be the one responsible for it." As though realizing what he'd just said, Demyx furrowed his brows, scrunched up his face, and seemed to wonder whether or not his words were proper English. _Where was I going with that again?_

The amusement of the entire situation passed rather quickly and Xigbar just smothered his grin and patted Dem on the shoulder, telling him, "Focus on one topic at a time, dude. Works better that way."

"Look, I'm serious," Demyx said. "What is it you're up to now? You get a job or something? You think you woulda told us."

"Do you seriously think I would **willingly** get a job."

"…No. But that's beside the point."

"What is the point?"

"The point is, you're a ditcher, man!" Demyx hurled an accusatory finger at Xigbar that landed only an inch from his nose, drawing closer with each punctuating jab and accusation. "A Grade-A, bonefied **ditcher** in the _flesh_, and it's pissing me off that it's suddenly this new trend among us all to blow one another off for some shady side story! SO WHAT'S YOURS, HUH?"

Really, Xigbar didn't have the slightest idea what to say. If Demyx wasn't so annoying, Xig might actually feel touched—flattered, even, that his presence was so missed. But as it was, his face was a deadpan field of cropped corn in winter as he blinked, stared, and then said, "Dem…"

"What?"

"Axel."

Sure enough, Axel was sauntering up beside Demyx, a curious little expression gracing his entirely too angled, boney facial structure. Demyx turned to his supposed best friend with something of an indignant huff. "Speak of the devil," he said, and crossed his arms.

Now, Axel had had a terrible day. He'd been having back pains since eight o' clock that morning, and no matter what chair he sat in or how he sat in it, nothing seemed to save him from the extraordinary ass-stabbing pain that was his pointy bones gouging his skin. He'd never noticed how miserable a thing sitting was until recent events and certain people had pointed out that his lack of body fat was not only less-than-handsome, but also strangely creepy and not very conducive to comfort in the least. In secret, ever since, Axel had been purchasing three meals at Burger King, two pints of Ben & Jerry's, and a carton of deluxe eggnog every single day—consuming them _every single day_—and still not gaining a pound.

So he hated his life and the fact that Demyx hated him as well—_apparently_—did nothing to add any flavor or pleasant, spicy aroma to the situation at hand. Axel just shrugged off Demyx's anger. And when all Demyx did was stare very mutely and very… poutily at him, Axel looked towards Xigbar as an ally. "What crawled up his ass and died?"

"I don't get why I'm the only one noticing any of this bull…" Demyx grumbled. And then, figuring Axel had a name to add to his list of supporters via Xigbar (which was entirely not the case, as Xigbar was thinking both of them terribly immature and idiotic at the moment)—he made a beeline for the nearest possible comrade in sight. And it just happened to be a poor, innocent, little blonde boy traveling in Axel's wake.

"_Roxas_," Demyx went, giving the kid a grin with force enough to nearly send him flying backwards, "_you_ get where I'm coming from, right?"

"I, uh, yeah. Yeah, sure I do."

Still recovering from the initial attack of pearly whites and pinky gums, Roxas had to blink a few times to bring himself back to coherency. And even when he was coherent, he still didn't have the damnedest idea what in the hell it was Demyx was talking about, but he had it in his head that turning down that smile would be like jumping out the window of a high rise and leaving the parachute behind.

Axel scoffed, loud and clear, bringing one palm down and thumping Roxas on his back. Xigbar couldn't help but idly wonder why on earth the kid put up with so much abuse. Regardless, Axel grinned almost cruelly and asked the boy, "So where's he coming from, _Roxy_, huh? _You_ know the guy so well, why don't _you_ explain his PMS to us so we can all bear witness to the glorious revolution that is Demyx's god-forsaken hormones."

"Uhh…"

The hand that had previously pointed the finger now balled itself up into an angry fist and Demyx scowled and stormed for all he was worth, and given the boy's usual disposition of flowers and harmony, it was actually quite a sight to be reckoned with. "You're just pissed because Roxas actually gives a damn about **me** instead of _you_ for once," he all but snarled. "How's it feel to be left in the**cold**, square-ass?"

At this, Axel stiffened completely, eyes dropping into narrow green slits, making his curious, eyeliner-wearing tendencies all the more evident. But for a man with eyeliner, Axel couldn't have commanded a more powerful tone than when he put on hand on Roxas' shoulder, said: "Roxas, come on, man. This crowd blows."

And for a boy whose idea of a good time was playing acoustic in the field of daisies down the street from his house (again with that disposition of his), Demyx couldn't have mustered up any more resentment than when he laid his own hand on Roxas' _other_ shoulder.

"Roxas, you don't have to go with this jerk…"

Roxas kind of looked like he wanted to die a little.

And if this were an episode of Charlie's Angels, this probably would've been the point at which Roxas (kinkily handcuffed) would've declared something very witty that would call for a laugh track. I.e.: "Guys, I'm not a yo-yo!" But as it was, there was no laugh track except the one on constant repeat inside Xigbar's own head—which is another matter entirely and best left addressed another day—and he couldn't help but pity Roxas as he was, essentially, thrown to the hounds of high school and all its horrors. Xigbar had never been more thankful that he was leaving that scene at the end of the year.

So to save his little buddy, who wasn't so much a little buddy as he was a dull acquaintance, Xigbar cleared his throat and stilled the battle simply by reaching out _his_ left hand and putting it on Roxas' head. Roxas felt a little like a crystal ball or some other bizarre statue, relic, or treasure of a sort, and it didn't make him feel special so much as it just made him feel painfully, wholly _awkward_. For all of two seconds, Xigbar regretted the action immensely because the kid was wearing hair gel and those spikes were sharp and slimy. And then he got over it, regained his air of authority and dignity—such as both things were—and royally said:

"…Act-ually, Roxas asked me to drive him home earlier, guys. Sorry. Go get catty somewhere else. The squirt's got homework to do, and his ma gets on his case if he doesn't get it done."

"She does?" asked Demyx, releasing his hold on the boy.

"If yours did, Dem, you might not be failing. Give that some thinking," Xigbar told him. "Roxas. Car." And with that he turned on his heel and left, pretty damn pleased with himself and his glorious performance.

Of course, it took Roxas all of two split seconds to catch up with Xigbar, and he had to do a strange walk-trot to maintain the pace Xig set, because short legs and short stature never did anyone much good in the everyday land of speed and stride. But once they'd exited the building, Roxas kind of fidgeted with the shoulder strap of his backpack, scuffed his sneaker against the ground, and said a very belated: "…Thanks, Xigbar."

They stepped off-curb and parking lot bound, and Xigbar just snorted some kind of laughter and fished around in his pocket for some keys. "Yeah, I keep saving your ass lately. What's with that, huh?"

"I dunno. Maybe I guess my ass needs saving as of late and—"

"Rhetorical question alert."

"Sorry."

Roxas definitely took notice of the shoe polish smell inhabiting Xigbar's damn-near ancient car, but didn't say anything about it. Truth be told, he liked the smell of shoe polish, and truth be told, that was probably one of the few things Xigbar knew about Roxas that made him hold the kid in such high esteem. …That is, not that Roxas liked the smell of shoe polish, but just that he'd keep his mouth properly shut when it was supposed to be shut. And if there was one thing Xigbar liked people keeping their mouths shut about, it was his crappy car.

"Roxas."

"Mm?"

"Do you… think Demyx has a thing for Axel?"

"…HUH."

Xigbar definitely couldn't see because he was driving and his eyes were dutifully assigned to the road ahead, but Roxas had gone pink in the face and the way his eyes had gotten all wide and round, he almost looked like a yellow-headed baby seal of some rare breed. Oblivious, Xigbar blabbed one. "Yanno," he said, "he just gets so… _protective_ and shit. And I can't tell if he's jealous of you or just angry with Axel in general for that whole stupid dating mishap—which we haven't really heard from since—but the kid's pretty damn juvenile about the whole damn thing—**so** fuckin' juvenile I can't even tell what the hell he's pissed about in the first place. Is it just losing a friend or is it losing that square-ass to another person?"

Judging by the amount of silence that transpired following this question, Roxas started getting the sinking feeling that it wasn't just another one of Xigbar's well-placed rhetoricals.

"…Umm..." Roxas trailed off before he'd even gotten started. And then a strange thing happened.

"Are you homophobic?" Xigbar asked him.

"Wha—n-n-no!"

"You are, aren't you?"

"NO!"

"Well that's weird. Usually the younger people are these days, the more gay-friendly they grow."

"I'm not homophobic!"

Just as Roxas was about to throttle the driver—which, word to the wise, is never as bright an idea as it seems at the time, because everyone's well-being more or less depends on the gent operating the motor vehicle—his words finally seemed to register with Xigbar.

"Well, that's a relief," Xig said rather dully. Though this, Roxas guessed, was supposed to be cheer on Xigbar's part, it was excused because the other moron at the four-way stop had failed to realize it was such a thing and nearly plowed headlong into Xigbar's car as a result. The moment passed and all was well again.

"Aaare _you_ gay?" Roxas asked him.

"WHAT?! No!"

"Sorry. You just said--"

"Can't a guy be relieved to know another guy's not a close-minded jackass? _Thank you_, yes he can."

"Okay." Roxas was content to lean back in seat and breathe in the possibly hazardous fumes the car exuded during the rest of the trip home. It wasn't so far, really, and if Roxas had put his mind and a good half hour or so into the endeavor, he probably could have walked it at a quick pace. All the same, he felt he owed Xigbar something. And he tried to give him the only something he really had a whole lot of to give.

"So you. …Want a soda or something?" he asked once they'd reached his house.

"Soda?"

"Or pop?"

"It's the _same thing_." Xigbar blinked at the kid, wondering why he knew him in the first place and completely forgetting every positive quality Roxas sometimes exhibited. They were in his mammoth driveway, in the shadow of his mammoth mansion, which undoubtedly held his frighteningly skeletal mother, who wasn't really his mother. The contrast between her and the house she lived in however, made the entire setup all the more terrifying, and Xigbar never set foot inside the place except once a year, when forced to, under pain of death, for those ridiculous Christmas parties.

_One of which will probably be coming up soon. …Dammit._

Then Roxas intelligently said: "Gertrude," and Xigbar really wondered what went on in that house to make the boy so damn crazy.

"What in the **hell** are you saying?" he asked.

"Your cat, Gertrude. That's what that guy called it, right? Your friend?" And judging by the silence that followed _Roxas'_ statement, Roxas then got the sinking feeling that he was completely and hopelessly wrong. He blinked. Xigbar blinked. He said, "I hope that's what he called it. That's what I've been calling it."

"…It's _Virtue_, Roxas."

"Virtue?"

"…You've been calling it Gertrude? It's a **boy cat**." Roxas mumbled a quiet little 'oh' and then followed Xigbar out of the car, because even though Roxas' house completely scared the living shit out of him, no way in hell was Xig about to stand by and let his soon-to-be-feline—however freakish—also start becoming a woman. "God," he muttered, "no **wonder** all your pets are gender-confused, you crazy, inept little…"

"Not crazy," Roxas insisted, opening the heavily wreathed and decorated double doors to his not-so humble abode. "Inept?" he continued. "Fine, whatever, so 'Gertrude' and 'Virtue' sound _kinda_ the same. So boy kittens and girl kittens _all_ look asexual to me. I'm not crazy."

"Yeah, and you're not good at making excuses, either." Upon setting foot in the foyer, Xigbar instantly realized two things. One, the foyer had been redone—as it seemed to be every new year—and was this year around a royal blue color, adorned with matching draperies, vases, a velvet chaise lounge, and even a sapphire studded chandelier dangling above it all. _Talk about disgusting._ Rubbing his hands over his arms, Xigbar kind of shrugged, kind of scoffed. "Whatever… Do you think it'll respond to any other name?"

"Now look who's calling the cat an it."

"FINE. _HE_. Will _he_ respond to the name that's actually supposed to be_his_?"

Roxas looked around, checking for his mother, and upon not seeing a single speck of her anywhere in the near vicinity, motioned for Xig to follow him upstairs. From years of practice, Roxas moved with almost supernatural stealth so as not to be detected, whereas Xigbar just kind of blundered along, much as he did every single day of his life. Neither said another word until they'd traversed the labyrinth of the upstairs half of the house, only relaxing when they were safely behind the closed double doors of Roxas'… suite.

If you recall that much-earlier mentioning of mine about those who enjoyed having rich friends because it made them feel rich too, you should probably also know that the rule doesn't apply if you're talking about a rich boy making friends with a rich**er** boy. It doesn't make the rich boy feel richer; it just makes him feel awkward, jealous, and inferior. Not that Xigbar felt any of these things too terribly—he was just always blown aback by the stupid amount of _stuff_ Roxas had. And added to all that _stuff_ were now four kittens, who, as the boys entered the room, were waddled along Roxas' bed (king size, in case you should wonder) with Thursday in the middle, scarred, bedraggled tail and all.

Roxas dumped his school bag on the ground and then dumped himself on the bed, instantly covered in kittens. Even Xigbar couldn't deny the scene its cuteness.

"Maybe cats don't have good hearing either," Roxas was saying, "and he'll just think you're saying his name, even though you're really not."

"But Virtue _is_ his name."

"But he doesn't think so."

"He doesn't think anything—he's a cat."

"If cats didn't think…" Roxas trailed off at that, scooping Virtue into his hands and smiling at the little fur-wad before losing the smile and handing him over to Xigbar. "Whatever."

"Stop saying 'whatever,' you sound like a teeny bopper with no vocab."

"Look. I'm giving you a cat. Get off my case, already." Xigbar probably would've been worried that Roxas almost didn't want to part with the cat, but because Roxas smiled again when Xigbar took a hold of Virtue, he figured that maybe it was alright after all. So the two of them sat there a little while, not saying much of anything, not doing much of anything aside from petting cats and thinking thoughts that were a trifle difficult to think the hubbub of noise and school.

"Why'd you think I was gay?" Xigbar eventually asked.

"I didn't think you were, I was just asking."

"…Roxas, are you a woman?"

"Wh--? _**No**_. …Are you trying to prove something?"

"Well, I didn't think you _were_, I was just _asking_."

"Now I remember why we don't hang out." Roxas managed to pull a convincing straight face for about five seconds before he slipped and let a laugh bubble out. "Look, the question just… popped out, okay?" he explained. "It's not like a personal offense or anything. Unless _you're_ homophobic, in which you'd not only be homophobic, but a total hypocrite, too." That said, Roxas splayed himself out across his bed, reaching into the drawer of his bedside table and pulling out a little bag of strangely squishy fish-shaped treats. One by one, he gave one to each cat on the bed, and then handed one to Xigbar, who'd long ago settled himself on the floor. "Here, give it to the cat."

Xigbar did as told, and after Virtue had devoured the little thing, he hesitantly said the cat's name. "Virtue?" No response. The cat just went about cleaning his little whiskers, all four ears wiggling a little with the great effort it apparently entailed. Xigbar sighed. "Dammit. How am I gonna tell Lux we have to call the thing _Gertrude_ now?"

"I dunno." Roxas made a face, trying to pull one of the kittens from his pants. Two minutes later, the cat was still there—had dug itself right in with claws and fabric—and Roxas seemed to have given up, because he just changed topics like train tracks and said, "Oh. My mom said to give these to you." He held out four little red and silver envelopes—the much-dreaded invitations Xigbar had seen coming long in advance.

But…

"…Why do I have four?" he asked.

"You, your mom, your dad… and that guy. …_Lux_?"

"Luxord. Why'd your ma invite _Luxord_ to her holiday crapfest? She doesn't even know him, does she?"

"This might shock you, Xigbar, but I did kind of have to explain to my parents how we ended up with four kittens _and_ Thursday. So he came up in the story… it was kind of unavoidable… she said to invite him."

"Weird. Well, it wouldn't break your heart if I didn't give it to him, would it?" Virtue promptly took an experimental bite on Xigbar's flesh, and seemed to like what he tasted because he just sat there with Xigbar's pinky finger in his mouth while Xigbar tried to glare him down. _Oww. Owwwww._

"Why wouldn't you?" Roxas asked.

"…No offense, Roxas, but your _not_-mother defines the term 'psycho-bitch' perfectly. She's like a wino wench from the fifties at these parties of hers."

"Well everyone is coming."

"That's the part I don't get. Why does everyone keep showing up for these Christmas parties **every year**, when _every year_ they still suck just as much as the one from the year before?"

"They either keep hoping it'll be different, or they can't pass up free alcohol and… uh, fruitcake."

"Is Dem coming?"

"…Yeah, why?"

"No reason."

"You should bring Luxord." Roxas reached over and bopped the deformed little creature in Xigbar's arms with his index finger, thereby getting it release Xigbar's finger from his teeth. Were it not for the fact that Roxas still couldn't seem to get the Pants-Kitten off, Xigbar might actually have paid out a compliment on how well Roxas could handle troublesome little kittens. But as it was, Roxas stood up and the added weight of the attached furball nearly had his poor pants falling down altogether, so it was with a rather rushed voice and pink face that Roxas say goodbye Xigbar, told him again to bring Luxord, and promised him that he would try and stop calling his cat-to-be Gertrude.

x x x

As luck would have it, the rest of the week passed by with no event whatsoever. Xigbar went over to Luxord's house several times just to hang out, but they never had any astounding adventures because their trail for the love-letter composer had apparently gone temporarily cold. Meanwhile, back on the home front, Kurt was all over this wondrous connection of his with some cosmetic surgeon, and he promised Xigbar an appointment during winter vacation. Xigbar couldn't be less thrilled, but he just shrugged it off and forgot about it within five minutes of it ever being mentioned.

In fact, the only slightly curious thing that seemed to transpire over the week was the sudden disappearance of Kairi. She was nowhere to be found, though Roxas had asked her two best friends, Sora and Riku, what was up and they claimed she was, in fact, in school, but was just very busy. Of course, Roxas took very little notice of the death glare Riku had sent his way as soon as he'd thanked them and trotted off to go report the news to his curious circle of friends, but no one can entirely blame Roxas for missing it because Roxas, like so many, was not blessed with an extra set of eyeballs situated in the back of his head.

No one was really worried—simply curious as to the reasons for her disappearance. But Roxas figured it was just mounds of pre-vacation work piling up and Kairi probably had her plate completely full and that could all explain her absence quite easily.

Oh, how wrong he was.

None of them saw Kairi until that Saturday. They were one day into their winter vacation and already condemned to hell on earth, all sentenced to an evening at Roxas' house to bear witness to the usual disaster that was The Christmas Party. Precisely fifteen minutes after the official start time, Roxas opened the door.

"Kai—ri?"

Before we continue, I should probably point out that Kairi had been a regular at these annual Christmas parties for years now. And for years, Roxas' mother had always made her desire for Roxas and Kairi to become an item very apparent, and it usually came up right after she'd downed several glasses of Chardonnay. But the fact that Roxas' mother thought so highly of her had never seemed to really make it past surface level with Kairi. Every year she showed up in jeans, a nice blouse, her winter coat, and a pair of mittens she'd always made herself. She never dressed to impress, and that was really why the guys tolerated having her around. She counteracted Selphie's romantic tendencies and was just perfectly ordinary on a perfectly annual basis.

However, the Kairi Roxas met at the door was not that Kairi.

She appeared to be wearing some sort of very small cocktail dress the color of turnips—inside and out—and had her hair all piled up on her head so that it rather resembled a bird's nest gone seriously, seriously awry. There was too much makeup, she'd painted her short nails some fire engine red, and with the height of her heels, she actually managed to come up a good two inches taller than Roxas, though she looked as though she could topple over to her death at the slightest breeze.

There are many things to be said when presented with a friend wearing a disastrous outfit. There are, in fact, many things to be said that don't _have_ to be offensive, that can simply take it all in stride and leave no one with hurt feelings or crushed egos. Xigbar, however, (who happened to be standing by the front door, next to Luxord as they inspected the crystal bowl of punch situated in the foyer) disregarded all these things and cut straight to the point.

"…What in **the hell **are you _wearing_?" he asked.

"Nice to see you, too, Xigbar…" Kairi had been on the verge of scowling something awful, but as soon as Roxas looked as though he'd mildly recovered from the shock of greeting a female vegetable that stood taller than he, she perked right up. Clearing her throat with a polite little cough, she simply responded: "That is, I'm dressed for the occasion. In… taffeta."

"And a sheep, apparently. Is there a sheep hidden somewhere in all that?" Xigbar asked.

"N-no." Coughing again—Xigbar was hoping she was just terribly ill and all this could be written off in the end as a byproduct of fevered delirium—she turned to the still rigid boy in the doorway and smiled sweetly. "Roxas," she said. "Where's your mother? I have to give her a hostess gift."

"What's a hostess gift?" he asked dumbly.

"It's something to give to people hosting a party? To show your gratitude?" Kairi didn't really seem entirely sure of what she was talking about, but to abolish that thought, she simply pulled from her dainty little purse an equally dainty little wrapped box, waving it under Roxas' nose rather childishly, chiding him with, "Not that _you'd_ know anything about _that_."

Roxas had to keep staring at her for an extra long period of time, because he seemed to be having difficulty watching her magenta lips move and form words. When he finally got around to responding, Kairi's skin had taken on the most attractive blue sheen to it from standing out in the cold in something that would appear to be the equivalent of a tutu. He opened the door wider, he let her in, he still couldn't seem to say much of anything coherent, and then like a miracle he managed to point to the left, down the hall, towards the kitchen.

There was another very long pause, during which Roxas was probably regaining his breath.

And then he finally wizened up and became a proper gentleman. He said: "…Uh. She's in there."

"Thanks, Roxas. I'll just be a minute."

Demyx, who had surfaced from the basement some minutes ago to partake in Roxas-hunting with Zexion—who, for the record, turned right back around as soon as Demyx was out of sight and returned to the safety of the basement level—appeared then and had apparently witness some of the raw terror that was the scene unfolding at Roxas' front door. He chose that moment to then ask, "…Is anyone else creeped out beyond all belief? Because I can't feel my hands and that only happens when I'm scared shitless."

"Creeped out doesn't even begin to describe it, man," Xigbar mumbled.

All four boys—including Luxord, who was guzzling punch rather obsessively by that point—turned to watch Kairi's unstable exit down the long hallway. And they continued to watch the space she'd occupied, even after she'd turned the corner, as though they waited in fear for her to pop her crazily styled head out once more. Eventually, Demyx reached over and pulled rather insistently on Roxas' shirtsleeve.

"Roxas, come on. We're going back downstairs."

"Yeah… alright."

Stunned stupid, they all departed—Luxord with a freshly refilled Dixie cup of that strangely addictive fruit punch. The way Xigbar kept casting him sideways look after sideways look, he started getting the haunting little impression that perhaps he shouldn't be engorging himself on punch. If it's even possibly for a people to engorge themselves on punch, that is. But then he started to see strange little sparks of light all around his peripheral vision, and those merry little light balls gave him a one-hundred percent assurance that all was well, and that with punch in hand, this truly was the best of all possible worlds.

That was before there came a thumping down the stairs some minutes later, and each and every boy (plus Selphie) looked up and towards the stairwell. The thumping stopped after one, two, three, four, five thumps, and witnesses would later wonder if they'd then heard a murmured little: "_Fuck_." But this thought was momentarily banished because there she was again, Kairi, the bloodied bride of Frankenstein whose second entrance nearly made Selphie's jaw hit the basement's carpeted floor.

"_There_ you are, Roxas," Kairi all but cooed. "I've been looking all _over_ for you."

Roxas blinked. "…Did you just fall down the stai—"

"So what are we up to, hm?"

He looked up from where he sat on some antique looking couch, sandwiched rather awkwardly between Demyx and Axel. "…Playing Scrabble," he told her.

"It's a _party_, Roxas. Why don't we play some _party_ games? I think that'd be positively… _splendid_?"

Now it wasn't just Roxas who was blinking, but just about everyone. Demyx, ever the voice of concern in a sea of confusion, warily asked, "Kairi, are you okay?" to which Kairi just giggled very loudly at a very high pitch before teetering her way over towards the Scrabble board.

"I'm fine!" she insisted. "Come on now, let's play truth or dare! I think truth or dare is a… a _wonderful_ party game. But are we going to stay downstairs all night? Your mother was looking for you, Roxas, and I think she'd really like it if we all went upstairs after a while and… and spoke with the rest of the adults for a while. We are, after all, almost adults, too, so it should certainly be… expected of us!"

It was at that precise moment that Xigbar stood up so quickly that he almost fell right back down. Luckily he didn't.

"I'm ducking out of this one," he said.

"Same," said Luxord.

"Xigbar, you can't be serious!" The way Kairi pointed that one lacquered index finger so demandingly at Xig, Demyx couldn't help but be reminded of himself. And it was right then and there that he made a rather solemn oath never to point at anyone ever again—not because it was rude, but because it was so creepy and wild and wrong. Unaware of any such oath going down, Kairi turned to the blonde at Xigbar's side with pleading eyes. "Luxord?" she asked him.

"Sorry darling—my heart's just not in the right place for, uh… That sort of… recreation."

"Well, I still say it's a wonderful idea. Selphie does, too. Don't you Selphie?"

"…Suuure I do?"

"Exactly."

And that was really the last thing Xigbar heard of the matter aside from Luxord's muttered "Exit, exit, exit…!" coming form under his fruity breath. And with those exits, the two promptly made their _own_ exit out the sliding glass door leading to the backyard. They were greeted by a bubbling fountain—all lit up for the nighttime and smelling like chemicals to keep the water from freezing—and a vast expanse of dark green that stretched out towards the pale brick wall surrounding the property, glowing white in the moonlight. It all would've been terribly pretty if both boys weren't rather shocked from all the disturbances of the inside world behind them and the door.

"What in the… _hell_ is going on?" Xigbar asked, probably more to himself than anybody else, but a passing airplane far overhead seemed to moan out the answer: _'I have no ideaaa.'_

Luxord wasn't much better.

"When you told me to expect the worst, Xig," he said, "I didn't honestly think you meant it. …I really should just learn to stop questioning your—"

"No, the _party's_ as bad as ever, but Kairi's making it a hundred times worse. _Jesus_, it's like she's lost her mind! I think Roxas' mom must have converted her."

Luxord had been forced to endure meeting this woman upon entering the house, because he'd also disregarded Xigbar's advice that they show up at least have an hour late to the event so that by the time they got there, Roxas' mother would be pleasantly plastered in the dining room and have not a care for who all else came through the door. But, ever the gentleman, Luxord had them showing up right on time. Even Xigbar's own parents hadn't been that stupid.

So when Xigbar mentioned a conversion of some sort, it wasn't with much amazement that Luxord asked, "She has a cult?"

"She has to," Xig said.

"That's disturbing."

"You have no idea."

Both boys stood outside and listened to the plane pass and fade into the distance, and as soon as the very last of its sound had died out somewhere behind the trees, Luxord turned back towards the house. For a few short seconds, Xigbar was worried he might actually be having second thoughts and want to go back inside, but no sooner had the nasty little notion sprung up in his head, it was put to rest. Luxord was clambering up the neatly stacked pile of logs by the side of the house, straining for a view through the elevated basement window.

"Here, help me up," Lux said.

"What for?"

"Because. Maybe from an outsider's perspective, everything is more obvious than it is on the inside. The growing power of third-person, you know."

"I've never heard of that."

"Just do it." So Xigbar huffed and puffed for all of a tiny moment before he caved in and climbed on up beside Luxord. Even Xigbar still couldn't quite catch a glimpse through the window, which stood a good six inches or so above his head. However awkward he would later think the situation as being, he then found himself with his arms wrapped around Luxord's knees, his face pressed against Luxord's hip, and Luxord's hand digging rather painfully into his skull for balance.

Obviously very happy with this setup and hardly the least bit uncomfortable, Luxord went about describing the scene on the inside.

"For starters," he said, "they all look ridiculously miserable."

"They always look like that. What else?"

"Stop tipping me everywhere."

"Well, a log pile isn't the most stable thing to stand on, man! And you're not exactly a… a… a lightweight fairy _princess_ or anything!"

"Fairy princess? _Really_, Xigbar. We have to work on your vocabulary. Now calm down. Alright. Now then. Kairi is laughing hysterically about something—everyone else looks severely alarmed… It's really quite a shame, because you know, when she was in the car that one time, I actually thought she was quite charming, but I never would've imagined her to be a femme hyena in a tutu."

"She's usually not like that. What's going on now?"

"More laughter, more laughter, more—oh. Wait, hang on… Alright, there's a bottle in play now. One juvenile game to the next. I wonder how many they'll knock off before the evening's out?"

"Good God."

"Kairi's spinning it… annnd, it's Zexion. No spark there, that's for sure. She looks disappointed."

Xigbar had to admit that that was a bit unfair. Sure, Zexion wasn't the most manly gent to ever grace the earth with his overpowering presence of testosterone, but all things remaining equal, he was what many women would consider to be painfully attractive, and also witty, cynical, and book-smart, to boot. What wasn't to like?

And then, perhaps because of this thought or perhaps because of another, a very small speck of an idea began to surface in the back of Xigbar's mind. Call it a revelation—though it really was nothing of the sort—but whatever it was, it started as a pinprick and began growing at a rapid, rapid pace.

"Wait a minute…" Luxord didn't hear him.

"Zexion's giving it a go… There's Selphie, looking quite happy. _He's_ just about as ecstatic as he _always_ is."

"Luxord, I think—"

"Now she's giving Axel a peck on the cheek… Hm, that's odd, Kairi—"

"Kairi went on that date with Axel."

"Oop, lookit that. Axel's kissing Roxas."

"**WHAT**."

The expression that overcame Xigbar's face right upon registering _those_ words and processing _that_ mental image was such a disturbed expression that it managed to somehow wiggle his face nearly free of his stylish pirate patch. And, still completely dumbfounded and in absolutely no state for advanced cause-and-effect thought processes, Xigbar unthinkingly reached up to fix his little patch. Of course, this involved letting go of Luxord, who then squeaked (though he would later deny any such thing) and began pin wheeling his arms and falling rather awkwardly and painfully back down onto Xigbar's foot, causing Xigbar to grunt and curse, and the one arm that was still loosely kind of draped about Luxord's shoulders now dutifully served the purpose of hauling both boys down together as the entire log pile tumbled over.

"_XIG_-BAR!" Luxord sounded rather accusatory and Xigbar just couldn't figure out why—though his lack of figuring may well have had to do with the fact that he'd been knocked on the head by Luxord's right sneaker during the fall.

"It all makes sense now," Xigbar said, spitting a piece of tree bark out of his mouth and onto the lawn.

"Oh… augh, there's a pine needle in my nose…" Luxord was saying. He kind of wanted to cry—not so much with pain or sadness, but with the dawning realization that the entire situation was actually pretty damn hilarious now that it was over.

Xigbar sat up hurriedly, scrambling over so he towered above Luxord on all fours as the latter was still rather spread-eagled on the grass. "Tell me about the kiss," he said.

"Well there's not much to tell other then—'Oh, there they are! Leaning in! Mouth to—OH—wait, no, just a second—the sky, the wood, the ground. Pain, darkness, everywhere. The horror, the horror." To accentuate all this, Luxord brought the back of one palm to his pale little forehead and just about swooned right then and there, even though he was already lying down.

"Get over it," said Xigbar.

"Axel kissed Roxas. What was I supposed to be looking for?" Luxord asked him, sitting up. "I thought we were looking at the Kairi girl to figure out why she's gone completely batty."

"_She_ was the one Axel went on that date with, _that's_ why he wouldn't tell any of us _except_ Roxas, and _that's_ why Kairi was so unhappy that night we picked her up and gave her a ride home. Then, even after the date, Axel _still_ wouldn't tell us what happened and Kairi disappeared all this week and wouldn't talk to anyone, _even_ Axel, who she's always latching onto whenever she's got some stupid reason to hate all the kids in her own grade. …And she's the only one who never made fun of his square, bony ass." Xigbar was convinced in that moment that he in all his average street-boy, surfer-kid glory was destined to be the next big thinker on the market. Who else, surely—who else could have put all that together so seamlessly?

Luxord seemed to think all this over, pulling bits and pieces of nature's love and care from his person while he chewed and chewed over Xigbar's words like a good piece of meat. "Huh," he muttered. "Next thing you'll be telling me is that Axel only went out with poor Kairi to try and make that dense Roxas fellow jealous, which didn't work because Roxas' feelings are already wrapped around Demyx. And Demyx is completely oblivious to everything."

"Exactly!"

"Oh, hey, imagine that. We might be on to something."

"I can't believe I didn't catch onto that sooner. So _that's_ why Roxas was so into talking about being gay…"

Luxord stopped exactly what he was doing, hand still poised in midair with a pine needle help between his thumb and middle fingers. He blinked. "What'd you say?"

"Nothing," said Xigbar, who clearly wasn't coming down off his intellectual cloud—which he never really got to laze about on in the first place—unless Luxord forcibly dragged him down. "Just wow," he said.

"Wait, hold on, gay topic?"

"Look, Lux, it's really not—"

"You're gay?"

"No, I'm not gay! Now get up and let's go inside, for crying out loud. It's freezing, they're crazy, and I wanna see if all hell's broken loose." Xigbar himself leapt upwards in a surprising display of agility that even he didn't know he had. It might have been more impressive had he not caught his toe on a log en route and stumbled and cursed, but not all things could be expected to be perfect.

"Wait," Luxord said suddenly.

"What?"

Xigbar went to all the grand trouble of turning back around to look at Luxord while he talked, but Luxord seemed to be having a rare trouble of… talking. His mouth was just kind of barely dangling open and the only sound that could be heard escaping it after a moment was a low and unintelligible: "Thhhahhh."

"_**What**_?"

"I have friends at school who are gay," Luxord said. He blinked after he said it and judging by the look on his face, he wasn't entirely sure _why_ he'd said it, either.

"…So?" went Xig.

"So it's not all that bad," said Lux.

"I never _said_ it _was_! Je-sus, what's with everyone thinking I'm some hyper-conservative bigot who wants to disembowel every dyke and fairy to ever prance the earth?"

"Cut the prancing fairy bit."

"Man, what's _up_ with you?"

"It's nothing."

"No. Nooo, I'd beg to differ. It's a total, definite something."

"Just forget it…" The emotion behind such a supposedly bland, three-word response actually caught Xigbar off-guard considerably. They exchanged some rather awkward stares, the two of them, before Luxord reached up, rubbing the back of his head with one hand and grinning sheepishly while he said, "Sorry, Xig. I think someone spiked the fruit punch."

"Of course someone spiked the fruit punch," Xig said to him. "They told us it was alcoholic as soon as we came in here."

"Well why'd they go and do a ridiculous thing like that?" Luxord asked. Obviously he was more perplexed than he should've been—Xigbar just stared him down long and hard.

"Why did they spike it or why did they tell us?" he asked him.

"Don't mock the intoxicated," Luxord said, "just stand aside and let there be warmth." And with that almost biblical declaration, he slid on over to the sliding door, slid it right on open, and slid right on in through to the light.

"As you wi—huh?" Xigbar, right on the heels of his beloved bosom buddy, stopped where he stood and just blinked. They were, oddly enough, in an empty room. Pillows lay all dented and misshapen in a circle on the ground, an empty soda bottle in the middle of it all. "…Where'd they all go?" Xig asked.

"Maybe they've moved on to hide and seek."

"God, I hated that stupid game."

"Only because you moved like a drunken rhino with one leg too many and were never clever enough to vary your hiding places."

Now, Xigbar thought he couldn't have been more confused, because up until the unfortunate log-tumbling excursions of some minutes ago, he'd been reasonably sure that the whole indoor scene would've deteriorated to a senseless kissing orgy prior to his return. But there wasn't a soul to be seen—it was as though everyone was either completely invisible or as though Xigbar and Luxord had somehow managed to stagger around blind, drunk, and at a dizzyingly fast pace outside, thereby landing themselves in someone else's house—not Roxas'. Yes indeed, Xigbar couldn't have been more confused up until the point at which he heard someone whisper his name.

He looked over at Luxord who, in turn, was looking over at him, and both of them blinked, looked around the room, and then heard it again.

"_Xigbar_?"

_Oh. I know that voice._

"Roxas, man, hey, where are you?" Xigbar, for whatever intelligent reason, decided it was a good time to drop to his hands and knees and scuttle around the floor, seeing if he could find the little boy tucked away in some obscure niche somewhere. Luxord simply watched and looked terrifically amused—especially when Xigbar almost brained himself against the closet door that swung open right as he was approaching it.

"I'm right here…" If Roxas was surprised to find Xigbar crawling around his basement floor and suddenly _right in front of him_, he didn't say so. He just blinked—looking a little like a barn owl—and asked, "Are they gone?"

And right as Xigbar was about to say so and right as Luxord was about to say no, there came yet another familiar voice and a thumping down the stairs—though far faster than the thumps of Little Miss Kairi and far deeper than her curious squeaks and squawks of that evening. It was Axel, and his hands were jammed so low in his pants that his pointy little hip bones were visible, his eyes were so wide and green that it looked like fistfuls of grass had been shoved in his empty sockets, and his button-up shirt of stripy blue cotton was frumpy and sad and his face looked _exactly_ like his shirt. …To say the absolute least.

"Roxas?" he asked.

"_I'm not here_," Roxas hissed at Xigbar. Right before he closed the closet door as quietly as he could.

"Oh, it's you." Axel stared at Luxord and Xigbar—his eyes falling to rest on Xigbar and staying there for a few moments. Xigbar couldn't quite figure why he was so interesting, but by the time Axel'd gotten around to raising a very skeptical little red eyebrow, _Xigbar_ had gotten around to figuring that it probably looked odd—him running on all fours like a… large, hairy puppy.

He awkwardly sat himself down on the floor in a flailing of limbs and was nothing less than eternally grateful when Luxord stepped up to the plate to save his undignified ass. "Pleasure to see you, too, Axel," Lux said. "Where'd everyone run off to? Party games really get that boring?"

"No."

"So, ahhh… what _did_ happen, man?" Xig asked him.

"I fucked up," Axel said simply.

"Well, that's not surprising—" Upon catching sight of Axel's murderous glare, Luxord promptly and almost smoothly changed gears— "surprising—lyyy… good. That's not surprisingly good at all! In fact, it's really quite terrible. Oh, unfortunate you. What happened?"

"Axel…"

"Have you seen Roxas anywhere, Xig?" Axel asked. With his face all like it was and with his hair looking unusually tame and somewhat matted down, he looked a stray little creature who'd been kicked at, cursed at, and spat on more times than should ever be counted. Were Xigbar aware he could feel such an emotion, he would've then called the sudden wave of something that hit him the greatest sympathy he'd ever felt for his redheaded friend.

But all sympathies aside, Xigbar couldn't ignore Roxas and Roxas' plea. He was, in perfect manner of speaking, stuck between a tall, red place and a short, blonde place, and Xigbar was going to crowd as close to the blonde side as possible if only because around Roxas, there was at least breathing room over his vertically-challenged head.

No one ever said Xigbar's thought processes made the best of sense, but they were strangely symbolic and somehow meaningful.

So, in answer to Axel's question, Xigbar just sighed, just said: "No, I haven't seen—"

"He's in the closet," said Lux. Xigbar turned and glared at him. "_What_?" he asked.

Before Xigbar could so much as let out a: "Luxord, you idiotic little shit" in retort, he was bowled over by Axel's mad sprint towards the closet door, which again almost collided with Xig's skull as it swung open, revealing a bedraggled little Roxas who was fighting to conceal himself beneath something that looked like a very questionable fur rug. Upon realizing he'd been discovered, he scowled something fierce and immediately pinned his eyes somewhere near the ground behind Axel's scrawny stork legs, right where Xig was sitting stunned stupid.

"Xigbar!"

"It wasn't me, man," Xig told him. "Blame the freakin' Brit."

"Who's Brittany?" Axel asked.

Luxord let the awkward silence fall and stay there—where it seemed quite happy to wreck its havoc—before speaking up. "That was a failed attempt at a joke if I ever saw one," he said to Xigbar.

Axel was reaching for Roxas, saying something that neither Lux nor Xig could make out from their distance, but Roxas was retreating further beneath the pelt of whatever dead thing was on top of him, still throwing verbal ammo in Xigbar's direction for what little it was worth. "I don't even know why I tell you anything, Xigbar. You're such a hypocrite. You're just pissed 'cause you hate…"

"Hate what?" Luxord asked.

"Gay people," Roxas said.

Axel stopped pursuing Roxas for a moment, just so he could turn around and look at Xigbar like the kid was the scum of the earth. "Dude, you're a bigoted li--?"

"_No_, I'm_not_."

"He's not, really." And just as Xigbar was about to shoot Luxord a little thankful smile, he suddenly felt something warm, soft, and slightly fuzzy brushing against the side of his face and it was definitely not Virtue running amok in Roxas' basement. What it had been, in fact, was the side of _Luxord's_ face as he'd bent down as placed a very light—almost unidentifiable kiss on Xigbar's cheek with all the finesse of a well-rehearsed playboy of the western world. He was actually trying to prove something—probably what a beautiful, open mind Xigbar possessed—but Xigbar wasn't even processing that, not even when Luxord shot Axel a rather pointed '_Shows you a thing or two' _stare and said, "See? He's perfectly fine."

Meanwhile, Roxas had almost managed to sneak out of the closet undetected, but was foiled again as Axel lost interest in whatever the hell was going on between Luxord and Xigbar and turned back to find him in stealth mode, attempting to creep around him towards the stairs.

"Roxas, look…"

Luxord bent down once more, his words hitting Xigbar's ears and registering as best they could (Xigbar still being in a rather off-kilter state of mind and all that). "This is our cue to exit. Again," he said, and pulled Xig to his feet and up the stairs before either could hear what all was transpiring between Axel, Roxas, and the closet door.

x x x

"Look, don't be sour about the whole Roxas-in-the-closet bit."

"Dude, he obviously didn't wanna talk to Axel."

"Wrong. He probably did, but didn't know what to say."

"Whatever. Doesn't change the fact you ratted."

"But see, I didn't so much _rat_ as I simply acted without _bias_. You chose Roxas over Axel. I didn't choose Axel over Roxas—I didn't choose anyone. I just acted on gut instinct. That's more than you can say."

"More than _**I**_ can say? As if siding with the sane one over the insane one is a goddamn crime!"

"Of course taking sides is a crime, you idiot! When it comes to squabbles between friends, you're _supposed_ to play the part of Switzerland!"

"There you go with freakin' _Switzerland_ again, Jesus! You'd think the place was the frickin' promise land or something, with how much you _talk_ and talk about the damn thing. Are you sure you're British? Because I dunno, man, I kinda get this creepin'-up feelin' that you—"

"Shhshhshh!"

"Now who doesn't want to talk about it? Huh? Mr. _Avoidance_? Mr. '_I'm so suave, but watch me fail at trying to change the topic with a_—'"

"Would you shut up already? Listen!"

The two of them—Xigbar and Luxord—had been making their way as quick as they could towards Luxord's car, trying to escape the rising chaos of the party still inside. They didn't know where Demyx or Zexion or anyone had disappeared to, and for all either of them knew, Roxas and Axel had long since killed one another in some ensuing domestic squabble in the basement floor. Therefore, the only sensible option either of them could draw up from all this was to retreat with extraordinary haste and make like nothing had ever happened.

But as Luxord was trying to coax Xigbar to tone it down and just listen for a moment, he drew both of them to a halt, thereby driving a very unpleasant iron rod in the cog-workings of their masterful escape plan and bringing the whole thing to a dreadful halt. His hand came up and grabbed at Xig's shoulder, keeping the other boy from moving anywhere as the two of them stood in Roxas' front yard.

And still it took Xigbar a while to realize what that sound was that they were hearing—a scuffling, snuffling sound that he felt was familiar and foreign at the same time. _Wait, I know what that is._

"Oh, someone's crying. That's a new one," Xigbar muttered.

"You heartless git. It's that little Kairi girl." Sure enough, she was sitting on the curb outside Roxas' house and there was no way to cross the street to the safety of the parked Saab without blatantly ignoring her and her misery. Xigbar hated the world.

"We should go talk to her," Luxord said.

"What the hell's the _matter_ with you, huh? We're not cupid. We're not Eros. We're sure as hell not Dr. Phil. And I know it's not the case for you, but figuratively speaking, I'm a human island with little to no contact with the female species and a _strong_ desire to keep it that way," Xigbar growled.

"Time to graduate from the baby pool, then." And before Xigbar could utter another cantankerous word of protest, Luxord was gone. Agile little twerp that he was, he was already speed-walking down the driveway, waving one arm like a lunatic, and going: "Kairi!" like he was going to save the girl and her pathetic life right then and there in the wealth of upper-class suburbia.

"Goddammit…" Xigbar said. No on heard him. No one ever did. Nonetheless, he followed Lux. He wasn't about to wait around and try to find his mother in all that mess—wait around for more disgusting drama and angst to unfold before the night was out.

"Xigbar? Luxord? Wh-what are you guys doing here? I thought you went home," Kairi said. When Xigbar caught up to the scene, she was rubbing fitfully at her eyes, a thick black and blue mass of mascara and eye shadow caked in circles above her cheeks. Either not noticing how completely freakish Kairi looked at that moment or simply not caring at all, Luxord kept right on talking, not missing a beat.

"We were just on our way out. You need a ride?" he asked her.

"My mom gets off work in an hour, I'm okay…"

"An hour? Sitting in the cold? Lookit you, girl, you're skin and bones in a… a…" He only faltered when presented with a very serious dilemma in description, Xigbar knew. And when he caught up to himself and said: "Really flattering dress," it was all Xigbar could do to keep from rolling on the concrete with laughter. "Come on. We'll give you a lift."

"Thank you…"

As if that wasn't bad enough, Xigbar thought, Luxord then carried the disaster ten steps further, sentencing Xigbar to sit in the back seat with Kairi while they all put their coats up front. At least, that was the original plan—only Kairi hadn't brought a coat, so Luxord's coat took the front seat, and Xigbar forfeited his rather grudgingly to Kairi's frigid shoulders. No one said anything for the first five minutes of the drive, and Xigbar couldn't tell who he disliked more at that moment—his supposed best friend, or the strange, scrawny little girl who had taken the place of the normally rather awesome and somewhat sisterly girl he'd known for some years. And just as he was about to settle on condemning the Kairi imposter to hell for all she'd done to destroy the evening, she finally spoke up. And it was no imposter speaking.

"He told me I wasn't girl enough," Kairi said quietly.

And because Luxord didn't say anything in response to that, Xigbar felt it was his civic duty as an upstanding member of society to promptly turn to his right, blink a few times, and go: "He did _what_?"

"I don't know… We went out. Me 'n Axel. And I thought it was a good time, you know? I mean, first dates are always awkward… so I thought it was okay. But then he started talking about Roxas and…" She was talking to the window and seemed to catch a glimpse of her reflection as the car drove under a streetlamp, so she started rubbing at her eye makeup again, sighing, and slowly continuing. "And he said that if he was going to go for girls, he would go for really _feminine_ girls. And if he was going to go for guys, he'd go for kind of_feminine_ guys…"

"But Roxas… isn't really that feminine." Xigbar turned forward again, staring at the back of Xigbar's seat and picturing Roxas in his head. Roxas, the kind of boy who was good for a laugh, good for a soda, good for a philosophical conversation or two, but who otherwise tended to possess a sort of acidic attitude to everyone but the closest friends. _Definitely not feminine._ So: "I mean, yeah, he's kinda runty, but that's just 'cause he's, like, **twelve** and hasn't touched puberty with a ten-foot pole," Xigbar said.

"Roxas is almost seventeen," Kairi mumbled.

"He's _basically_ twelve. But he's still **not** feminine. Axel's obviously on drugs—that doesn't even make any sense."

"You didn't let me finish." Kairi sighed again and Xigbar got to wondering when on earth Luxord was going to speak up and put a stop to this ridiculous emotional carnage Kairi was revealing to them in the back seat. "He said that was just the way he was," she told them. "How he normally worked. But then he said Roxas was _different_ and_special_ and… and I don't know. I'd thought he'd actually kind of… taken an interest in me and I… was wrong. He asked me if we could pretend to be going out to make Roxas jealous. And I said no."

"Huh. I was right." Xigbar wanted to hit himself as soon as the last word left his fat, moron mouth.

"What?" said Kairi.

"I said… **you** were _right_ to… leave that jackass. What a douche, man."

"He's not, though. Why would I get upset over a… a… douche?"

"Well, I don't know. But that's exactly what's happening," Xigbar said. He didn't want Kairi to start bawling again—not all over Luxord's fine leather interior or anything—but it looked almost unavoidable. And then Luxord did actually speak up, if only to prevent that very thing from happening.

"Kairi, look. You are a _beautiful_ girl. Really. How old are you?" Luxord asked her.

"Sixteen."

Xigbar was all prepared to hear another riveting go-get-'em pep-talk from Luxord, but was suddenly very, very alarmed when a rather awkward silence then fell on the car. No one was talking. _Why is no one talking? Why is Luxord not talking? This is clearly supposed to be the point in time at which he starts talking_. But no. No, no, no, and no again—Xigbar was somehow wrong, and he didn't even realize it until he mustered the guts to shoot Luxord a _'WHAT ARE YOU not DOING?' _look via the rearview mirror, to which Luxord simply blinked calmly and raised an eyebrow.

_**You**__ say something._

And so, Xigbar did just that.

"Exactly. And…" He swallowed. "Annnd…sweet sixteen year olds like yourself don't deserve to… have their hearts broken by some legal bonehead who can't tell his head from his ass. You're better than that, and eventually he'll realize that and feel bad about all this shit. But whatever you do, don't play into stupid social games like that. They're not worth your freakin' time and they only bring good girls like you down to some rotten, ugly level in the end. And I might not be that important to you, but…" _…But __**what**__? Shit, where was I going with this? But __**what**__, Xigbar? But __**what**_ Xigbar coughed. "Well," he said, "it'd suck to see that happen to you."

Again, everyone was quiet. And again, Xigbar felt uncomfortable in it much in the same way as one would feel uncomfortable dressed head to toe in potato sacks. In fact, when Kairi finally said something, it was almost relief enough to pull a sigh from Xigbar's lungs.

"You really think all that stuff, Xigbar?" she asked him.

"Well… Yeah. I do," he said.

And then a very strange and disturbing thing happened, because Xigbar was suddenly pulled sideways and surrounded by waves of perfume as Kairi attacked with a sudden and almost vicious hug from hell. "Thank you," she was saying—though she was kind of talking into his hair. "Thank you so much."

"Uhh."

"You have no idea how much that means to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you."

"Umm…"

"I think you're sweeter than all those jerks at that stupid party. And you know what else I think?" She released him and he promptly sat right back up again, trying to keep enough self control about him so as not to look in the mirror again and see Luxord's laughing maw gaping at him from the front seat, especially as Kairi grinned so happily and told him: "I think that if I could have done the whole 'dating a senior' thing over again? I would've tried you. Because you've got a good heart."

"Erughhghh?"

"But I'm gonna quite with that stuff for a while. This has made me realize that most boys are total jerks. So no more dating them until I find a better one like you. Preferably my age, too."

"…Wait, so if you're not dating boys, are you dating girls?" Luxord asked from up front.

"No, silly! I'm not dating anyone!" And though neither Xigbar nor Luxord could see it, Kairi stole a small smile for herself—which is probably one of the most delightfully selfish things a person can do. "Not for a while anyway," she said, and let the smile grow for her and her alone.

"Oh. My mistake." And yet just as everyone thought Luxord was on the verge of simply letting the issue slide and die… "But you know," he added on, "it never hurts to keep your options open."

"I'll keep that in mind, Luxord." Xigbar had never been so glad to arrive at any given destination at any point in his life. There they were at Kairi's house—a delightfully normal structure, a delightfully normal change from the grandeur of mansions and spiked beverages and sprawling yards galore. "Thanks again for the ride. And for not being total jackasses," she told them.

"Our pleasure," said Luxord.

"See you next year, Xigba—OH!" Kairi mumbled something unintelligible from the side of the road, where she'd completely face-planted upon catching her very high heel on the lip of the car's door. Xigbar watched with some degree of amusement as Kairi struggled to right herself, while Luxord looked over and blinked.

"…You alright there?" he asked her.

"I'm fine!"

And the door was closed and the car was leaving. In five minutes, they were parked in Luxord's driveway. And it took Xigbar exactly those five minutes to regain full control over his mental facilities and process the entire night's strange events, one by solitary one.

_Fact number one: Axel is a confused, user douche bag. Fact number two: Luxord, Roxas, and basically everyone dislikes homophobic tendencies. Fact number three: I do not display these homophobic tendencies, much to everyone's apparent confusion. Fact number four: Kairi is abnormal when under emotional stress. Fact number five: for whatever reason, Luxord did something curious with his mouth and the side of my head._

Having processed all this, Xigbar felt a little giddy and good about himself, even though he just realized he had let Luxord drive both himself and Kairi home while under the influence of intoxicating substances_. Oh well!_

"What was that about, huh?"

"What was what about?"

"You just _have_ to try and make Kairi into a lesbian. She shows me the _slightest_ ounce of affection and you just have to go and make her date other women."

"Oh drat, you've discovered my diabolical plans. I'm ruined." Luxord laughed, shook his head, and hopped out of the car. "Come off it, Xig," he said.

"I'm just kidding."

"You were good, you know? I'm actually really quite impressed with you. I didn't know you could be so charming."

"I assure you, it won't happen again."

"We'll see."

Luxord unlocked the front door, flipped some light switches, and the two headed inside, through the hall to the kitchen. Neither knew what exactly the plan was—was Xigbar staying or going, were people sleeping or out, was Larxene lurking or gone—but whatever the plan was, it was put on the backburner as Luxord examined the pile of mail on the kitchen table at his usual place. Sandwiched between a copy of Boy's Life—which he detested, but which his senile grandmother continued to subscribe to for him—and two advertisements for some private college or other, there sat a plain and inconspicuous white envelope, stamped and addressed and the whole nine yards.

Luxord & Xigbar.

8374 Sebolda Dr.

Etc. etc. etc.

"Uh, Xigbar? We just got a letter," said Luxord.

Xigbar blinked. "We just got a _letter_?"

Luxord nodded. "We just got a letter…" He looked at the thing before tearing it open, saying as he did so: "I wonder who it's from?"

"What's it say?" Xig asked.

"To the boys with the letter—not this letter, but the letter that I think is probably actually mine… I would appreciate it if you didn't go waving it around everywhere. You should know that people's personal property is just that: personal. And if I wanted the entire world to see it, I would have put it on the internet. As it is, please meet me there, December 24th, at three at the Canterbury Park so I can get my letter back. Thanks. –P."

"…It's signed 'P'?"

"Yep. Just a loopy letter P, right there."

"Huh. I wonder how they found out about it?"

"Who knows. People_know_, though. Not many, but a few. What are we up to now…? Wakka—he knows. The girl Yuna knows… The mysterious P probably found out from one of them." Luxord skimmed through the letter once more, grinning by the time he was done and tossing the thing back onto the table. He let out a contented sort of sigh, stretched, and simply said: "But that's for tomorrow. For tonight? It's sleep."

"Backyard?" Xigbar asked him.

"Backyard."

Six blankets—three of them quilts, one of them micro fleece and two of them comforters—accompanied the boys outside, and it was almost with a pang of sadness that Xigbar figured they wouldn't be drawing out the tacky citronella candles that night. There were no bugs to be found—just the cold hard ground and the empty expanse of sky, hovering over them as it did every night. The entire process being old hat like it was, it wasn't long before both Xig and Lux were sprawled in their regular fashion, and it wasn't long before Xigbar felt the familiar prod and poke of exhaustion coming in at the edges of his brain, threatening to drag him down at any given moment.

But then Luxord spoke up. "You know, I meant what I said before, Xig. You're a little different." Xigbar felt the other boy roll over to face him, but he didn't dare avert his eyes from the overhanging black and he couldn't really say why. But Luxord didn't seem to mind because he kept on nonetheless. "I've seen you do more things for other people these past few days than I see most people do for others in an entire year," he said.

"You must not know very gracious kids, man."

"I don't, that's true, but…" Luxord trailed off and flopped over onto his back once again. He swallowed before saying a little jerkily, a little awkwardly: "It's good, still."

"…Hey Luxord?"

"Yeah?"

"We really gotta stop camping out in your backyard during winter, man. I can't really feel my hands."

And then, as though the day couldn't possibly get much stranger, Luxord raised _his_ hand from where it was on the ground and moved it as though to envelop Xigbar's own—though this actually would have been impossible because Xigbar had considerably larger hands than Luxord. But he stopped. Midair, palm above palm, Luxord hesitated for whatever reason, but Xigbar noticed. He couldn't have missed the slight and sudden pulse of heat that hit his fingertips and traveled through his veins to his wrist, nor could he have missed it when the heat disappeared. Luxord sat up, wadded the blankets around them into a large ball, and turned back towards his house without another word. They spent the night on Luxord's bedroom floor—Xigbar slipping into sleep quickly and quietly, Luxord staying awake and silent for quite some time after.

At one point, Lux rolled on his side to face the bulky shadow lying next to him. He might have opened his mouth to say something and it might have been a very important something just waiting to be said—but whatever it was remained capped and quiet as Xigbar twitched and muttered in his sleep: "_Nnno_..."

And though Luxord didn't have the slightest idea what Xig was saying _no_ to, he figured he'd take it as a sign. Eventually, he fell asleep.

(x) (x) (x)

Pardon me: LOL, BLUE'S CLUES REFERENCE. Oh, childhood.

…But enough of that. Here's to hoping I'm not moving the relationship between Xig and Lux too slowly. Is it too slow? Is it a drag? It's not supposed to be. So… feedback, please! Ridiculous buckets of thanks and love to those who have reviewed already—you folks keep me going, through and through! Through the best of times and the worst of times! Through... lots of other shit, too. On that happy note, I'm out. Stay gold.


	6. The Logic of a Friend

How To Do Nothing At All

**How To Do Nothing At All**

'The Logic of a Friend'

Mornings After are not only limited to following a night of sex—good, bad, or otherwise. They're also known to follow a day of truly life-altering proportions. Though neither Xig nor Lux knew it, Roxas' Christmas party had made for a day of life-altering proportions. At the time, both were content to write it off as one seriously screwed day, irreparable and irrevocable, but certainly not life-altering. Little did they know.

"I've decided we're firmly and finally removing ourselves from social drama for the remainder of winter break," Xigbar said decisively. He was in one of those half-asleep stupors, slumped over Luxord's breakfast bar, head precariously balanced on his fist over a bowl of soggy Reese's Pieces. "My phone's gone off fourteen times in the past two hours," he way saying. "I've gotten ten text messages—none of them good—and I got a voicemail from Dem where I couldn't understand what in the hell he was saying, but when I played it again I could've _sworn_ he said something about an albatross, a poncho, and a butcher knife. And he might have said Axel's name once or twice—I have no idea."

Luxord couldn't be seen from behind a mass of newspaper, but his voice carried well enough through the material because the funnies made for a light read. "Maybe he's getting philosophical on you, hm? He could be the next Pangloss of flesh and blood. Truth in that statement," went Lux.

"Like hell there's truth in that. Demyx going philosophical is like that girlfriend of yours—Busty—writing a bestseller. Unlikely, unreasonable, and just fuckin' dist_ur_bing to think about." Xigbar prodded his spoon with a thoroughly uninterested finger, watching milk dribble over the sides of the thing, plopping back on down into the cereal bowl. Luxord yanked the paper down from around his face, revealing a rather disgruntled little expression and a rather disheveled mass of blonde bed-head.

"She's not my girlfriend," he said.

"She totally _was_," Xig added.

"She isn't anymore. And for the last time, Xigbar, her name's not _Busty_, it's—"

"Her name's unimportant—it's her front that counts." As though to prove his point, Xigbar made some questionable swirly motions with his hands around his chest, which didn't really succeed in doing much aside from drawing a raised eyebrow and some muttered phrase that sounded like a damnation coming from Luxord's mouth. Forgoing the torment of his good buddy a while longer, Xigbar sighed and said, "Alright. We had to do something today, but I don't remember what it was."

Luxord just kind of blinked. "You don't."

"Nope."

"Not a clue?"

"Nadda."

"Well, we were supposed to go get donuts, of course."

"We were?"

"Yep. And seeing as it's… almost eleven… we're late."

The two of them made for the Saab, both still unclean, both still wearing the clothes of yesterday, and both still sporting pillow-meet-scalp conditions of hair treatment all over town. Tucked away in the local donut shop, they each started engorging themselves on whatever fat-filled pastry they could lay their hands on, and by the end of a good hour or so, they'd gone and plowed their way through a half dozen-box and three cups of coffee. And when all was said and done, it may very well have been the surge of sugar to his brain that caused Xigbar's memory to do an about face, because it was only then that he realized:

"…We weren't really supposed to go get donuts, were we?"

"Of course not," Luxord said. "We need to meet someone about the letter. The mysterious…" He paused and took a swig of coffee. "The mysterious P, remember? Professor P. Doctor P. P the all-powerful and imposing ruler by divine right."

One hand splayed on the table, Xigbar prodded at an empty Styrofoam cup, successfully sending it toppling uselessly over onto itself. "Right, right," he sighed. "What time is it?"

"Eleven-thirty."

"Alright. We gotta pick up Virtue at two-thirty."

"We have to be at the park at three."

"…We do?"

Luxord blinked. In the time it took his eyes to open, shut, and open once more, he'd reminded himself of two things: firstly, that Xigbar was a painfully human teenage boy of some oddly-numbered years, and secondly, that Xigbar must have possessed t he worst short-term memory Luxord had ever encountered in his short-yet-cultured life of eighteen years.

All realizations aside, Lux just brought out his inner, sophisticated man, cleared his throat, and simply said, "Yes." With a slow and sleepy nod from Xig, he continued with, "We'll just take the little monster with us—it'll be fine. I doubt it'll take that long anyway. We'll make sure Master P is the owner of the letter, hand it over, offer him our absolute best luck—perhaps a few pointers on why you shouldn't confess your love to someone via paper correspondence in public places—and then we'll be off on our own merry ways to celebrate Christmas Eve."

"I hate Christmas." All Xigbar could remember of any Christmas he'd ever known was awkward gift exchanges. His mother would, more often than not, buy him something tacky and supposedly ingenious—an As Seen on TV miracle—a piece of freshly patented crap that never seemed to do what it was intended to do, but always made for a superb doorstopper. And Kurt was even worse—he was always buying Xigbar musicals for some reason Xig could never really bring himself to figure out, seeing as he'd not once expressed an interest in West Side Story or Meet Me St. Louis and was certainly not musically inclined himself in any way, shape or form. But every year, without a doubt, there would come a sleek DVD case with Kurt babbling on senselessly about what a _classic_ it was—what a fantastic _classic_—music in its prime.

Xigbar took the opportunity to reflect deeply on the only successful conversation he'd ever really had with Kurt concerning music—in which they talked about David Bowie for all of two minutes over dinner while Xig's mom got the broccoli out of the microwave. Meanwhile, Luxord was slowly but surely raising one eyebrow, intending to convey a '_What in the hell are you thinking, you idiot_?' sort of expression, but getting nowhere fast because Xigbar's eyes weren't even in focus—they were in some other nowhere plane.

"Cheer up, now. Tomorrow you'll get disgusting amounts of material displays of affection and, for about two hours, you might actually enjoy yourself."

"Kurt's mom is coming over."

"She's the one that smells a bit… _off_, isn't she?"

'Off' was putting it rather delicately in Xigbar's book. "She _smells_ like a prune milkshake that a dog crapped on a bathroom rug."

"Ah. That one. But she's got a stunning personality. Why, I remember that one year when we were thirteen and she kept calling me… What was it she kept calling me?"

"Cromwell," Xig mumbled as he jabbed his thumbnail through his empty Styrofoam coffee cup. "Which, might I add, doesn't even sound remotely _like_ Luxord."

"He was a ruler, you know. Somewhere between two Jameses and two Charleses, there was a Cromwell. I don't think he was very successful though. Some religious nut. And as elderly as this woman may be, I don't think she's quite elderly enough to have had the honor of meeting the guy."

"Well, luckily you don't have to deal with her."

"Actually, I like your family, Xigbar."

"Why? It's full of nut-jobs and spineless kooks and—like I said—prunes."

"Better than Larxene and her darling husband."

If it's possible to forget about your best friend's broken family in casual, everyday conversation, Xigbar had just gone and done it. Quite unintentionally, might I add, but he'd gone and done it all the same. If he knew guilt, he would've felt it—waves of the stuff, pouring thick and heavy and unrelentingly down on his puny little person. As it was, the most a conscience got out of Xig was a slightly uncomfortable shift in his seat, which may have been a result from cheap diner cushioning more than from social blunders.

"Do you still go visit your mom?" went Xig.

"Her? No. Hardly. Sometimes. Not often." Aware he was sounding like an emotionally indecisive ass, Luxord let out a bark of laughter that wasn't nearly as forced as it was painfully awkward. "I haven't been for a year or so," he confessed, and the two boys got up from their counter seats, gathered their mess, and disposed of it in the proper receptacles on their way out. Xigbar was wondering how long it would take Styrofoam to decompose, but managed to derail that mental musing quick enough to save a vital conversation.

"You miss her?" he asked Luxord.

"No, hardly, sometimes." Lux grinned. "Not often."

x x x

Picking Virtue up from Roxas' house was a nonevent. Roxas did not burst into tears upon parting with the cat and his wicked mother was nowhere in sight. It was just Roxas, rattling and alone in that big old house as he always seemed to be—just him and his cats. And in that one moment in which Roxas placed Virtue in Xigbar's hands, Xigbar developed a terrifying mental image of Roxas—eighty and alone with nothing but a giant house of cats and misery to keep him company. And Xigbar, who had been getting more and more exposure to human emotion during the past month than he'd gotten in nearly four years, was finding the whole possibility of Roxas' future life so horribly dismal that he swore to himself right then and there that as soon as winter break was over, he'd do his level, slacker best to try and help his little blonde buddy sort his scrambled life out.

And as soon as the idea had entered his head, it was all Xigbar could do to keep from flat out laughing in Roxas' face (which no doubt would've disturbed the poor boy halfway to hell and back). Helping Roxas was not for Xigbar. Helping _anyone_ was not for Xigbar.

"_Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits_," Xigbar recalled the saying. For him, it was always sitting, never so much thinking. Just the sitting. And certainly never the doing. Helping Roxas was out of question, he knew. So he thanked Roxas. Didn't ask him about the night before, didn't ask him about what all had transpired between him and Axel after Xigbar had made his hasty retreat with Luxord in tow. Such questions might lead to more emotion, and more emotion might lead to tears, and tears would sucker Xigbar into damn near anything.

So he returned to Luxord's car, all a-grin, cat in arms, and the two of them made for the park. They showed up, believe it or not, twenty minutes early, and Luxord announced his craving for ice cream, which left Xigbar stunned stupid because no one in any right frame of mind had a craving for ice cream in below-freezing temperatures while sitting on a metal bench in a virtually uninhabited park. No one, apparently, but Luxord, who instantly set off to go find some ice cream, commanding Xigbar to stay put with Virtue at the designated meeting place where they would, in good time, meet the mysterious Mr. P.

Xigbar pulled his sweatshirt over Virtue to keep the little fur ball warm, and after a few minutes of wriggling around, the kitten accepted his fate and proceeded to purr and dig his claws into Xigbar's shirt, gleefully taking along some skin with the act while Xigbar whined and squirmed and cursed rather freely. When Luxord came back, out came the cat and in he went to Luxord's jacket—half unzipped so the fuzzy little cat head could peep out, watching Luxord lick away at an ice cream cone he'd gone and found who-knows-where. Eventually the cat got ice cream all over his head, which Xigbar saw coming about three minutes before it actually happened.

That was how, when "Mr. P" came about, it was just Xigbar—along on the bench while Luxord frantically attempted to bathe their newly adopted cat in the nearby restroom area.

Mr. P, as it turned out, what no Mr. at all. In fact, she was a very tall, very attractive woman with piercing eyes and short, cropped hair with an expression that Xigbar felt could probably lay an entire field of daisies flat with death. At least, the expression kind of made Xigbar want to cry. She seemed very butch, and he couldn't help wishing she would stand about five yards further away from him—not towering over his person like she was.

"Are you Xigbar?" she asked him.

"Ye-ah?"

"Do you have my letter?"

"Nnnope. That is, Lux has it. Luxord. He's in the bathroom."

"He's in the _bathroom_."

"…Yep."

"Whatever. I'll wait."

So picture in your head an angry woman and a puzzled teen a-sitting on a park bench in some frigid winter weather, not another soul in sight for as far as either pair of their eyes can see. The fact that Xigbar knew Luxord was just over the hill, tucked away in a bathroom—it did nothing for him. This woman probably could gut his body in five seconds flat, he figured, and by the time Luxord and Virtue returned to the crime scene, he'd be nothing more than some gore in a sweatshirt. All this was very disconcerting and the more Xigbar disconcerted himself, the more he really, truly wished he could disconnect his brain from the rest of his body without any life-threatening side effects. Alas, there he was, brain and all, alongside a psychotic chick who looked likely to carry concealed weaponry strapped to her thighs—along with other things, maybe.

The only natural thing to do was to make pleasant conversation.

"…What's the P stand for?"

"Paine."

"_Pain_?" He waited for her head to snap right and for her to make with the concealed knife, which she would probably use to cut off his balls, stuff them down his throat, and then rip open his gut to watch the digestion process in action. When she moved to scratch an itch on her knee, Xigbar could've sworn he felt his heart crumble and die a little.

"It's with an 'e'. Don't get scared now," she told him.

"Right. _Please_. Scared." Petrified was more like it. Paine sighed. Xigbar wondered if Luxord had accidentally drowned the cat in the toilet by some terrible mistake and was now trying to resuscitate the damned thing with CPR. He cleared his throat—went: "Why'd they name you that?"

"What?"

"_Paine_. Why'd your parents name you that?"

At first, it seemed like she hadn't heard what he'd said. Maybe she had a bad right ear—maybe she had a birth defect or maybe she just had very selective hearing. Even Xigbar was known to block out the frequent Clean Your Room's and Do Your Homework's of everyday household conversation and replace them with I Made You A Sandwich's and Here's Twenty Dollars'. Any hope of any similarity between Xigbar and Paine, however, was shot to pieces when—after a brief moment—she fixed him with a glare, let out another sigh, and then took a very deep breath.

"Look," she said. "I don't expect you to understand. You have a dick. If you didn't and if you were, by some chance, a woman—you might figure it out. You crank out a baby—you squeeze something the size of a watermelon through something the size of a lemon—there's going to be a _whole_. _Lot_. Of _pain_."

"**Oh**. 'Kay. Sorry."

"Doesn't matter."

Luckily for Paine—and even more so for Xigbar—Luxord chose that very moment to pop into existence, strolling down the path with a cheery whistle before breaking into a grin and going: "You must be P!"

Paine gave him a once over and told him, "There's a cat in your jacket."

"Yes, yes there is. His name is Virtue and somewhere in here is the letter you think is yours."

"It _is_ mine," said Paine, getting to her feet and moving to stand directly in front of Luxord.

"I'm sure it is," Luxord was saying, trying to move past a jacketful of cat to get at some obscurely tucked away letter, all the while trying to keep a straight face—even when Virtue decided it was perfectly appropriate to lazily bite Luxord's seeking hand. "**It's—**oww—just that we'd hate to go and give away someone else's letter to the wrong person, so we just want to be sure it's yours before we hand it over. You know. Just trying to do right by the community and all that."

Luxord raised an eyebrow at Xigbar, who was making obscure neck-strangling hand gestures immediately behind the woman's glaring figure. To Luxord, it looked like Xigbar was choking on a sunflower seed, and he maybe would've asked him if he was in need of assistance were it not for the fact that Paine's voice got particularly icy at that particular moment in time and it was just enough to make Luxord completely forget about any particular choking hazards his particular best friend may have been experiencing.

"_Really_. You just want what's right for the _community_," went Paine, standing up from where she was seated and easily surpassing Luxord height-wise, staring down her nose at him.

"…Yes. Really," Luxord said. "Especially because you signed the letters differently—the one you gave us and the one you think you left in the store. One P and one X."

"If I wanted the whole world to know my business, I would've put my social on there, too."

"We're not trying to pick a fight, really. It's Christmas Eve and all th—"

"And I really have somewhere to be and you're not helping my case. Just give the letter over so we can all get out of here happy."

"Look, I'm sorry. Just real quick, tell me what the letter said. Then we can—"

"You _read_ it?"

"Of course we read it—it was just lying there! Unassuming. Innocent. How were we to know what it—"

"You don't go _reading_ other people's business."

At this, Luxord actually got a little defensive and Xigbar really wondered if it would have been an appropriate moment to punt the boy right back over that hill of his into the old safety of the men's bathroom once more.

"_Most_ people," went Luxord, "don't hold personal communications through mattresses at a strip mall."

"Okay. Listen. Obviously, you're not getting a word I'm telling you. I want that letter and I want it now. I have things I need to do and I just want all this crap out of my life once and for all. Give. Me. The letter." Paine stuck out her hand, waiting, watching, ever expectant, eyes boring into Luxord's own as the latter clutched the bedraggled little envelope in one hand. Xigbar honestly thought he would kill Luxord himself if he didn't just hand the damn thing over—unless, of course, Paine killed both of them in a fit of estrogen-induced rage. Which, Xigbar fancied, was growing more likely by the second.

"Just tell me what it says," Luxord said.

"Just give it to me!"

"Tell me what it says!"

"No! Give it, **now**."

"Fine!" And as Luxord practically crammed the damned letter into Paine's hand, Xigbar nearly burst into tears with sheer joy. "_Honestly_."

Yanking the paper from the envelope—allowing the envelope itself to flutter lifelessly to the ground—Paine's eyes scanned the page once, twice, three times before her brow dipped into a puzzled furrow and Xigbar's sickened '_You've really done it this time, Lux_' feeling returned with full strength.

"…This isn't mine," Paine said.

"**Really** now? Imagine the odds," went Luxord.

"I don't get it. Where's my letter? Where the _hell_ is my letter..?"

And for all that Luxord had never had such a rude first meeting with anything—alive, dead, fictional, or real—he couldn't help but feel an ounce of pity for Paine, just because she looked so genuinely confused, so genuinely distressed. But all he could do was offer a helpless shrug, holding out a hand into which Paine reluctantly returned the letter.

"I'm sorry about all this, then," he started, "it—"

"_God_, no wonder…"

"…No wonder what?"

"Nothing, alright? Just… forget it. It's not mine."

"…You sure you left it at the same mattress store? The one at--?"

"Yeah, I'm _sure_, okay? Yuna told me exactly which one. I know it was that one."

If it had been warm enough for crickets, that would've been the perfect time for them to start singing, because no one was saying or doing much of anything. Feeling obligated to break the silence, Xigbar decided to voice what both he and Luxord were probably thinking. Yuna. "So it _was_ her."

Paine blinked. "What?"

"Nothing," said Xigbar.

"Dammit… This is all wrong," she said.

"Is there anything we can do?

"You don't have _my_ letter. There's nothing you can do."

"Well why are you leaving it hidden and lying around like that anyway?" asked Luxord. At that moment, Xigbar tried to engrain it into his brain that he was going to need to have some serious discussions with Luxord at a later date. Serious, important discussions as to how to protect one's life against angry, weapon-concealing women. But in the meantime, Luxord was just prattling along like Paine was a punk rock incarnation of Mary Freaking Poppins. "Because, really, if it was _that_ important, people have mailboxes. Or hands? They have those, too, remarkable though it may seem. Just give the—"

"Life is more complicated than you understand," Paine growled. "You're, what, nineteen?"

"Eighteen, but thanks."

"_Eighteen_. Even worse." She crossed her arms and fixed both boys with a stare and never before had Xigbar actually felt his own young, stupid age like he did in that moment. Being talked down to—beaten verbally into the ground by some strange woman.

She told them, "You don't know shit about anything yet, and it's painfully obvious to anyone who gives you a once over. So guess what, kids? There'll probably come at least one time—probably more in _your_ lives—in which you can't, no matter how hard you try, get hold of someone. Because they've fuckin' locked you out, shut you down, and really don't want to hear what you have to say anymore. Because the opportunity you had—the chance you had—is gone. And there's no way in hell you're getting it back. So _yeah_. Times like that, you kinda _have_ to try and play around if you want to get a message to them because nothing else aside from pure luck is going to save you by that point. And messages through mattresses—it's pure luck. And if you don't have luck, you don't have jack shit."

"I—"

"Just shut up."

Paine, Luxord, and Xigbar all sat on the park bench—Luxord in the middle with the cat's head still poking out of his jacket. None of them could fathom what the hell they were still doing there. It was stupidly cold. It was getting late. It was Christmas Eve.

"Who was it for?" Xigbar asked, a while past, a while after the sun had started teasing below the tops of the park's trees.

"My girl," Paine said. If either Luxord or Xigbar was surprised—which neither really was, to be honest—they didn't show the slightest sign of it.

"Do you need anything?" Luxord asked.

"You already let me down with that pure luck. There's nothing else. I told you."

"What happened?"

"None of your business. Forget it. It's got nothing to do with you, it's not you're problem, and you sure as hell don't know—or probably care—who I am. What's it to you?"

"Just another part of an ever-evolving story?"

"Well write it off. It's done."

"Maybe it'll get better?" Luxord tried.

"Or maybe you never should have written a letter in the first place," said Xigbar. He regretted it the second after he'd said it, for what it's worth. But for whatever reason, he just couldn't seem to stop the idiotic words from spilling out of his mouth more. As if he knew what he was saying. "Maybe you shouldn't leave anything up to your pure chance if it means so much to you. It's called taking initiative. If she was that important to you, would you really have--?"

"It's _called_ connecting my fist with your gaping face."

"Or… that."

"Don't talk unless you've got something valuable to say."

"Just. That. You know. If all else fails, do it…"

"Old school!" Luxord said. Xigbar blinked. Luxord sounded strange when he said 'old school.' Maybe it's because he was so energetic for no apparent reason when he said it. Like it was a brilliant flash of insight on his part.

"Old school?" Paine asked.

"Call her," said Lux.

"…Or text her," said Xig. "Though that's kinda new schooling it."

"No matter. Just find her."

"_Then_ talk to her, face-to-face. And if it all just freakin' **fails**—stalk her. It's a creepy, insistent form of flattery and it usually leads to confrontation." Paine, Luxord, and even Virtue were all staring at Xigbar rather curiously by that point—Luxord and Paine because he had just said something rather moronic and Virtue because there was a speck of lint on Xigbar's shoulder that moved when Xigbar shrugged off all the stares.

"And how'd you know that?" Luxord asked him.

"Axel's my friend. Trust me, I'd know."

Paine blew the idea out of the water, getting to her feet again, striding back and forth, obviously torn from one end to the other and Xigbar and Luxord watched on as perfect strangers—as another perfect stranger all but poured her cold, black heart out to them. "Don't you think I've _tried_ that?" she went. "Yuna's her cousin. Her own _cousin_ doesn't know where she's moved and the only time they see each other is at work. …And I can't go in there."

"Why not?"

"She just goes into the back."

"So follow."

"And get arrested?"

Xig took the opportunity to snap his fingers—something he'd always been wanting to do every time he'd gotten a brilliant idea, but something he'd always forgotten to do each and every time the moment presented itself. He said, "Wait a sec, we were at that coffee place. Er, that Starbucks. Who're you talking about?"

"Rikku."

Blinking, Xigbar sighed. Defeated. "…Doesn't ring a bell."

"Yes it does, idiot. She's the one who sat down with us first. Before Yuna," said Luxord.

"Ohhh. Wow, really? 'Cause she's pretty hot." Xigbar laughed. Luxord sighed. Paine just glared like she wanted to kill him. Embarrassingly late, Xig tried to correct himself. "I meant hot. In a… lesbian way."

"Flattering."

"You're welcome."

"I'm done with this." And apparently she was, because she didn't say anything else—just turned and walked away. And both Luxord and Xigbar thought she was joking—could've sworn for about twenty seconds that she would turn around and keep talking, but all she showed any sign of doing was just walking, just like she was, out of their adventure with all the speed with which she'd entered. Because he thought she was interesting or because he felt it was all part of the process, Luxord called out to her one more time.

"Is she that important to you?"

She stopped, turned back. For a minute it looked as though she was about to curse the life out of the two of them, but all she said was, "Would you just let me turn around and leave already?"

"Is she that important to you?" Luxord asked again.

"Why else would I be talking to a bunch of clueless kids like you if she wasn't?"

"Just checking, is all," said Luxord. And Xigbar was reasonably certain he could make out Paine saying something like '_Fucking idiot kids'_ as she turned to leave for good. And really, though he'd never admit as much aloud, Xigbar felt that Paine pretty much had them pegged right then and there. They _were_ idiot kids, through and through, and Xigbar thought he'd probably always _be_ an idiot kid, though he had a bit of faith that Luxord would end up amounting to more.

"Xigbar. Do you know if Roxas is still in?"

"You mean home? Think so. Why?"

"Do you know if he has any plans for those other kittens of his?"

"I dunno. Not that he's said."

"Then come on. We've got a delivery to make."

x x x

"Roxas! I need another cat!"

"…What, Virtue die on you or something?"

"No, we just need to repair a lesbo love connection in time for the warm and fuzzy holidays."

"Riiight. Hang on. Okay. Here."

"Man, you're just givin' these things out like candy, huh? Hey, but thanks, man."

"No prob."

"So, uh. How ya doin'?"

"How would _you_ be doing? I mean, your best friend tells you he's mad crazy about you… **Weird**."

"…Yeah. Yeah. No shit, huh. …Well, see y'around!"

"Right, sure. …Hey, Xigbar? Uh. Merry Christmas?"

"…You want me to, uhh… talk…? To Axel?"

"You're kidding, right?"

"Yeah, kinda."

"Go to hell, Xigbar."

"I'm getting there. Don't rush me."

x x x

"Xigbar! Luxord!" Both boys were wide-eyed when little miss Yuna of some weeks ago grabbed them both in a hug. "How is she?" she was asking, ushering each of them in before they could still even try getting their minds around whatever enthusiasm possessed her. Luxord recovered quicker than Xigbar—he always seemed to.

"What was that again? How's your psychotic _friend_? **Oh**. She's fan_tas_tic. I can't remember the last time I was threatened with bodily harm quite so much within five minutes of meeting someone."

"Listen, I'm _really_ sorry about all that. I know she was probably in a terrible mood—it's just that after everything fell apart between her and Rikku, she's been crazy. Not like, okay, not **crazy**-crazy. That's really giving you the wrong picture of her. Just… _sad_. So, so, _so_ sad, like I've never seen anybody before. So I'm guessing the letter wasn't hers after all?" Yuna was either a master of all expressions related to pleading puppy dog, or she was simply, genuinely concerned and had a face built for showing it. Xigbar was going to take a rare chance and gamble on the latter of the two—he got the distinct vibe that Yuna couldn't have been anything but genuine, even if she'd wanted to. And it just about broke Xigbar's heart-type-thing when he told her no—that the letter hadn't belonged to Paine after all.

"But… but how'd things work out with that Tiddly-kid, by the way?" Xigbar asked her, following along behind Luxord as Yuna led them both behind the counter, towards the back room. No one was in the coffee shop anyway. No one but Xigbar, Luxord, Virtue, and a box—which Xigbar held in his hands as Luxord still toted Virtue around in his half-zipped jacket.

"Oh, you mean Tidus?" Over her shoulder, she tossed Xigbar a vibrant little smile, saying, "He's great. You guys give… _really_ good advice. I'd give you free coffee, but we're closing early and—"

"That's okay, we gotta be getting back and all that anyway. We've just got to, ah, you know. Tie up some things. Is Rikku here by any chance?" Luxord asked.

"Ye-ah, yeah, she is…" Yuna had them both paused outside the doorway leading to the back, and judging by her hesitance, Xigbar wasn't so sure heading merrily on back there, erupting into some girl's troubled romantic life and all that—was really the best plan for the two of them to put into action. And Yuna seemed to be getting the same thought, because it was then that she slowly and cautiously started stringing together some words into a sentence—a sentence into a thought. She said, "Listen, Luxord. I meant it when I said you give good advice. And you guys have been _really_ helpful, it's just that Rikku and Paine are… complicated."

"And if it doesn't work, we'll link arms and waltz right back out from whence we came, no ruckus caused, no questions asked—I guarantee it."

So maybe Yuna truly did have some sort of strange, backwards faith in the two of them. Or maybe Luxord was just dashingly persuasive. Xigbar didn't know. Whatever the reason, she held open the door for both Xigbar and Luxord and the two of them made their way to the back. Walls were lined with coffee cups and boxes and bags and dishes—tucked away against the far back wall stood an enormous sink—one which really resembled more of a bathtub than any sort of sink Xigbar had ever seen before—and poised above this sink was Rikku. Or at least, Rikku's back. All of it was very hard to make out because the closer Lux and Xig came to Rikku, the more their vision was clouded with tiny bubbles that rose from the sink and spun around the air before bursting unnoticed, one by one.

To top it all off, a lone CD player was positioned in a corner of a metal shelf, playing away:

_Don't you remember you told me you loved me, baby?_

_Said you'd be coming back this way again, baby?_

_Baby, baby, baby, baby, oh baby,_

_I love you, I really do._

"…Is that Sonic Youth?" Xigbar asked, but all for no response. Luxord found the sudsy soap bubbles floating around the room all too distracting, and Xig could only roll his eyes and thank whatever god there might be that Yuna was still with them, though lingering some distance behind. Yet it was she who broke the silence, creeping up towards the sink and jabbing the stop button on the CD player.

"Rikku?" she went.

"**AH**! I mean. _Ah_?" Rikku turned, stared blankly at Yuna for a moment or two, before turning still more to face Xigbar and Luxord. "Who're you? Wait, no, hang on… I remember… Llllexa—"

"Uh, Luxord. And Xigbar. And we're just going to be a second."

Rikku blinked very, very slowly, and Xigbar was pretty certain that if he stood maybe a foot or two closer to her, he'd see little red ribbons lacing all through her eyes, because even from where he stood as he was, there was some serious dark baggage hanging under those little green peepers, and it really was quite sad. She sighed, wiped her hands on her apron, and looked towards Yuna, who just said nothing. No real big surprises there. "Well. We're closing, guys..." she trailed off, not looking like she had the energy to object, but not looking as happy and eager as she probably should have—would have—could have when she jumped topics. "Oh… I meant to thank you. About Tidus and Yuna and how—"

"We heard. That's great. Glad to help." Luxord and Xigbar offered a grin each, at the exact same time, which was endearing while still managing to be very disturbing all at once. "Speaking of help," he continued, "we were asked to help someone else out, you know, and… Well, we couldn't really say no. See, we were walking through the park and we came upon this woman who—no, wait. Alright, never mind. You're closing, right? You don't want to hear the story. So forget the story. Just take the package."

And, no further speeches, no further deliberation, Xigbar held the box he'd been carrying out towards Rikku, both arms extended. And Rikku just sort of stared at the thing like she wasn't entirely sure what to do with it, which provided a rather awkward moment for all parties involved. Yuna looked on meekly, Luxord blinked and resisted the urge to shake the girl around a bit to grab her attention, and Xigbar refrained from laughing—which seemed to be a state he was finding himself in an awful lot lately.

"Package?" Rikku asked, obviously quite clueless.

"Present," Luxord clarified.

"Present…?" Rikku took the box, looked at it some more, and then looked back up at Luxord. "A present? For me?"

"For you. From the woman we met. She said you'd know who it was from."

Rikku probably couldn't have pulled off an emotional about-face quite like she did without being severely bipolar, schizophrenic, or both—leaving everyone present left to question her mental state while she flung open the box lid with some ridiculous glee that Xigbar had once though only children possessed for… well, pretty much everything. But after a certain point in life, 'everything' seemed old hat and just _boring_, but for whatever reason, Rikku was as delighted as she would have been had she never received a present before, had she never looked eye to eye, straight into the cute, fuzzy, endearing face of—

"A _kitten_!" The little fuzz in the bottom of the box barely had time to breathe before it was enveloped entirely in Rikku's flailing arms, which were obviously straining under the multitasking effort of cat grabbing and cousin hugging at the same time. "Oh, Yunie! You're the best! You're the greatest cuz' ever, and I—"

"...Oh, it, ah, it's not from me, Rikku. The cat's from Paine."

"Paine?" Rikku pulled away, the kitten in her arms squirmed around for air and nearly toppled itself over in the process. "Paine…" Rikku mumbled. "But it's cute. Paine hates cute things."

Yuna was busy looking at the floor, Rikku was busy staring off into space, and the kitten in Rikku's arms was busy chewing on Rikku's dangling blonde mini-braids. Xigbar and Luxord probably couldn't have picked a better time to make their exit had they stood around and waited all day for something grand and final to happen. Luxord, at the very least, knew enough about such circumstances to know when finality was likely to rush in and when finality was more likely to take her sweet time in falling across the setting with a slow and steady grace and ease. And in this case, it was certainly the latter of the two.

"Well, our job's done here. Happy holidays, ladies!"

"Wait, wait, wait-wait-wait, hang on. You can't just give me a cat and go, can you?" asked Rikku.

"Why not?"

"Well. I don't really know, yanno? I just feel like—"

"Just talk to your girl, would you? Whatever she did, she's sorry. Really. Trust us."

x x x

"I don't get it," said Xigbar, palm pressed against the car window. He was thinking about all the trillions of little atoms that made up the glass—wondering how much space was between them and wondering what it would feel like for his hand's atoms and the glass' atoms to pass through one another without break or hurt or cut or blood.

"What don't you get?"

"The letter."

"It's just a letter. …Come on, Xig. What's not to get?"

"I dunno. Everything. I thought getting it somewhere would be a pain in the ass, yeah, but all it's really done so far is show us some really weird characters and really weird relationships."

"The world is _full_ of weird relationships. And I don't mean to alarm you Xigbar, but the majority of the people inhabiting this green earth are weird, too."

"And happy. Weeeird and happy."

"They've got people to be weird and happy _with_."

For some obnoxious reason or other, this simple statement of fact drew up a sudden and soothing smile that implanted itself of Xigbar's face with the sort of vengeance he hadn't felt the like of in ages. No matter how much he contorted his muscles this way and that, that smile was not moving, and no matter how much this annoyed the hell out of Xigbar, that smile was still not moving. So pissed was he that this crazed facial twitch had gone and wrecked a havoc on his indifferent disposition, so completely and utterly pissed was he—he did and said the only thing that he knew would obliterate that smile and leave it a figurative bloody mess on the Saab's window.

"I tell you I'm getting cosmetic surgery?"

At that precise moment, Luxord's eyes rolled out of his head, he dropped to the right, landing unconscious in Xigbar's lap, and as Xigbar was screaming hysterics, the car drove smack dab into the side of an eighteen-wheeler, which was mysteriously present in the suburban side streets. The event drew the attention of everyone everywhere, and the gore smeared across the pavement was enough to bring to mind the muck of the Civil War, and the most senile among the rubber-neckers broke out into stories their pappies told them long ago before the fireplace while eating ma's chicken corn chowder out of a wooden bowl with nothing but their faces like God gave them.

…Obviously, all of that was a horrific lie, and I certainly hope you caught onto it the moment Luxord's eyes departed his pleasant little skull. What really happened, my fine and attentive audience, is that Luxord ran a stop sign because he was saying a rather desperate and drawn-out "_WHAAAT_?" and therefore got himself into quite the little fender bender, complete with a screaming soccer mom and her two snot-nosed kids sitting in the backseat, laughing wickedly with pointing fingers and sneering little faces while their mother's hell rained down on poor, bedraggled Luxord.

As it turns out, the woman's van was virtually untouched, because she was driving a '97 Ford Windstar, and as is common knowledge, the '97 Ford Windstar is descended from the WWII era tank and rich in security features and difficult-to-steer wheels galore. Luxord's baby looked like it'd gotten punched in the nose—if cars had noses—and it was all he could do not to flip the woman the bird as she seated herself royally in her van once more while Luxord still stared stupidly at the wounded front of his Saab. When he got back into the car, Xigbar's face still hadn't changed at all—the expression he wore upon impact was still just as it was—slack-jawed and wide eyed and owlish.

When he finally did manage to say something, the only thing Xigbar could say was, "Christ, Lux. That was probably my fault, wasn't it? Man, I'm sorry, huh. Here, come on. I'll pay for it to get fixed, okay? Lux?"

"You said you were _what_?"

"It's a long story."

"Why the… the _hell_ would you want to do that?" Xigbar hadn't previously thought it possible for a person to get so agitated—so strongly pissed and so very livid—that an actual vein would appear right there in the dead center of their forehead. And though he couldn't be sure, being ninety degrees to Luxord's front-facing person and all that, he was still reasonably certain he could catch a glimpse of some angry, pulsing _thing_ making itself present on his friend's otherwise endearingly handsome face.

Xigbar couldn't help it. He gulped.

"Aww, come on, man. Here, lemme just pay for the stupid dent and you can say goodnight to Virtue and we can all go celebrate the holiday just like you wan—"

SQUEAK.

Xigbar hated the Saab's horn-noise, and couldn't for the life of him figure out why Luxord was suddenly beeping the horn mercilessly in the dead center of their neighborhood.

SQUEEEAK, SQUEAK, SQUEAK.

He really was pounding away for all he was worth, it looked like. And he must have carried on for a good fifteen seconds longer before finally regaining control of himself and sniffing once, quite the deadpanned expression settled in on his face. Xigbar didn't know if he was really supposed to say or do anything in particular. He was wondering if it would actually all be better said and done if simply _nothing_ was said and all that was done was his making a break for it and seeking cover in the nearest nook he could find, not inhabited by Luxord—enraged as he apparently was. Before he could start creepy-crawling his hand's way over towards the door handle, however, Luxord spoke—surprisingly calm and surprisingly clear.

"Alright Xigbar," he said. "First of all, Virtue is half my cat—I will say goodbye to him when I am right and ready to say goodbye to him. Second of all, _**I**_ will pay for the damage I did to my own vehicle and I would really rather you not take responsibility for _my_ idiocy because it is _mine_. And furthermore, you ought to… ought…to… _God_, I'm being a complete bastard. Why haven't you hit me yet?"

Xigbar shrugged. 

"Alright. Alright, just give me a moment here… Alright. Now. Why. Would you get. Co… cos… _surgery_." Xigbar couldn't understand why 'cosmetic' was so much more difficult to say than 'surgery'. They did have the same number of syllables and all that.

"Because."

"Right. Fine. Good reason—clears that right up. _Xigbar_."

"Because I don't know! Man. Get off my case, huh? We've talked about this before anyway."

"I don't care if we've talked about this before. We haven't talked about this before and we're damn well going to talk about it now!"

For about a split second—maybe a little less—Xigbar honestly considered engaging in another mind-numbingly complex conversation with Luxord, which would no doubt cover the various aspects of social standards for physical appearance and the growing pains that came with being different. Neither of which he was really in the mood to discuss. Neither of which he felt capable of discussing without bursting into a fit of predictable teenage angst and rage. He watched lamely as car after car rolled on past them, taillights glowing in the winter grey.

For all he was worth, Xigbar summoned a pitiful look, unaware that he looked more grumpy and perplexed than he did pitiful as he said, "It's supposed to start snowing soon. The cat's shaking. Can we just go home, please?"

"…Fine. But only because of the cat—you could shiver straight through the world to China and I still wouldn't drive you home right now, you idiot. But for the _cat_? Fine. Alright."

Without another word, Luxord did as requested. They arrived in Xigbar's driveway not five minutes later, both boys unbuckling their seatbelts, both boys reaching for the door handles before Xigbar paused, sensing how something was a little off, and turned back towards the driver's seat.

"Uhhh, Lux? What're you—?"

"Talking. Remember? I won't crowd in on your family time, but I'm not leaving now for fear that when I next see you, you'll have a scalpel embedded in your thick, stubborn skull. Just tell me what the hell you're thinking and then I'll go." The two of them walked towards the door, Virtue now tucked under Xigbar's arm, and as he reached for the doorknob, he felt he should say something. Anything. Anything just to make Luxord's anger and resentment melt away a little bit.

_Nothing hits home like the truth right?_

"…You don't have to go or anything, you know. I'm not gonna kick you out. You're my friend, right?" Xigbar said.

"…Wh—?"

"Oh! _**Luxord**_! I can't _believe_ it! Look at you! Oh my lands, _just look at you_!" Xigbar's eyes nearly popped clear out of his head. Much like Luxord's _hadn't_ done a ways back there at that intersection. Were such a thing physically possible, it actually probably would've happened. From somewhere in the depths of his house, his mother had managed to fling herself madly towards the door, swinging, aged arms twining themselves around Luxord's sad, victim of a body before pulling him in for a hug best described as being… rather rabid. It was like some sort of very wrong, very scary tentacle porn. A sci-fi original horror film, made all the more horrific by the fact that it starred his mother.

"Oh!" Luxord kind of coughed, but couldn't really because air was having a bit of difficulty making it into his lungs. "Euh. Hello there, Mrs.—"

"**Kurt**! Come _down_ here! Xigbar brought Luxord over for dinner!"

"I did?" Xigbar asked.

"You did?" Luxord also asked.

Kurt then rounded the bend and if Xigbar thought the entire ordeal couldn't have possibly been made any worse, he was proved tragically wrong by the good-old-boy front Kurt put on for Luxord, clapping the guy on the back like he had muscle. Like he had a spine. Completely ignoring the fact that had Luxord not managed to brace himself in the half-second before palm-meets-back impact, he probably would've flown face first onto the ground.

"Well look who it is!" Kurt bellowed. There was some breed of laughter in there that made Xigbar wonder if Kurt had been some nobody from the gooneys in a past life. "Good **god**, boy, you're almost as tall as Xiggy!" he went on.

"Not really. No he isn't," Xig muttered. No one listened. Not that he really expected they would.

"Oh, but this is just so _exciting_! Why, I can't even _believe_ how many years it's been since you've actually really been over to the house! Oh, is this the kitten? Oh, how simply—Darling, what's wrong with it?"

"Nothing, mom."

"It has…"

"It's fine. _Virtue_ is fine, I mean."

"But Xiggy, he's—"

"Fine. Like I said."

Mother and son had something of a stare down going on right then, and though his mother didn't know it, Xigbar was just waiting for her to say something against mutated little mammals and that would be that—that'd be the end of whatever self-esteem he'd had going for him and all the strong confidence he'd built for himself over all those years dedicated to doing nothing but lazing around and feeling _glorious_ by lazing around—all of it would be for nothing. So Xigbar waited for the moment to come. It didn't. It passed by at alarming speed and before Xig knew what had completely missed him, his mother was making all over Luxord once more.

"Luxord! I'm just so **happy** to see you! How are you? How's school?"

"I'll bet you've got colleges beating down your door, hmm?"

"I'll be right back," went Xigbar. Again, no one heard. Well, almost no one. It looked like Luxord heard, because there were exactly two expressions flying simultaneously across his face as a result, the first being 'Are you okay?' and the second being 'How dare you leave me to these crazed apes you call your family.' Ignoring Luxord completely, but doing a fairly good job in pretending he wasn't ignoring anyone at all, Xigbar plodded up the flight of stairs, bedroom bound with cat in hand.

Once there, he didn't bother so much with turning on a light. Just nudged the door open with his foot and plopped down on his bed. Virtue made himself at home, sitting on his chest, yawning and looking and wondering if exploring his new surroundings was worth his effort or not. Xigbar was really pretty disturbed by how much of himself he saw in that cat. Maybe it was because of this he heard himself saying, "You're pretty fine, right? No one ever died from having extra ears or… a bald spot."

They stayed like that for several minutes, Xigbar petting the cat's fur, fingers sometimes playing up against those extra ears or that little hairless patch in the center of Virtue's head. Neither of them moved when a very quiet, almost inaudible tap came at the door, and it was pushed open just far enough to show Luxord silhouetted against the hall light.

"Xigbar?"

"Hey man. How'd you break free?"

"Sorry… I forget sometimes that I haven't been around in a while. You're not moping, are you?"

"You know me. The second you're out of sight: bang. _Waves_ of fucking depression. I can barely stand when I hits."

"You poor, pathetic excuse for a man."

"I know, right? Freakin' lame."

Luxord didn't hang around the doorway too long. He made his way over to the bed where Xigbar and Virtue were, seating himself cross-legged and only feeling a little guilty when the shift of the mattress caused Virtue to hop down from Xigbar's chest.

"So. Talk?" he ventured.

"There's nothing else to say. Kurt knows a woman who knows a guy who does some thing. That's all."

"No, there's more to it than that, because right now it sounds to me like you're talking about a phenomenal male prostitute."

Xigbar hacked on something that was actually a wad of saliva in the back of his throat, but which probably could've passed as being some tangible form of disgust. "Wha—EWW. No. God, Lux. Idiot. No. He's a… cosmetic surgeon or whatever. Starting a practice in town. Something like that. Said he'd… I dunno. Help me out?"

"Well. _**I**_ don't approve."

"I never asked for your approval."

"Well you need my approval because if you screw yourself up without my approval, I'll never forgive you."

"But if I screw myself up with your approval, you will?"

"Well, I'll have had it coming that way, I suppose."

"You don't make any sense."

"Neither do you! Cosmetic surgery? Are you insane? That's for fifty-year-old women who can't accept a few wrinkles and age with grace—_fifty year old women_, Xiggy, who would rather look like a wax doll than an aging human being—God forbid. And you're telling me you want to be like them? No one loves wax!"

"Unless you're talking about those scented candles that—"

"I'm not talking about scented candles!" Luxord was giving him the angry look again and Xigbar just sighed a wishy-washy sigh and reminded himself a little of Charlie Brown. And Virtue. A four-eared feline and a bald cartoon character. Life was not looking good for Xigbar at that moment.

"Well. It's not like that," he mumbled. "It's just fixing. It's not like… pulling or stretching or any of that."

"I hate this."

"Hate what?"

"You feeling like you have to change. Because you don't." Luxord averted his eyes downwards towards Virtue, who looked up at him in turn, with large lamp-like eyes begging for attention.

"Why you always gotta be so serious about everything? It's really not a big deal."

"Well, it is to me. Is that so bad?"

"I don't know." And Xigbar honestly didn't know, mostly because he didn't know what to do in situations like that. Luxord was making a big, emotional deal over something as insignificant as Xigbar's stupid ugly mug. It made no sense to Xig whatsoever, and all he wanted to do was let the topic die. So that's just what he did. And neither boy spoke a word for several long and hollow minutes, and when someone did speak again, it was Xigbar—changing topics and changing gears.

"I say we screw this shit," he declared, "and learn how to digitize our voices and warp 'em into teeny-bopper ballads that'll deal us billions. Then we'll cut a record called _Everybody's Crazy_ and each track listing with be an expletive, and by the time the record label's done censoring us, it'll just be a bunch of numbers and symbols on the CD back and that'll make our point all the stronger."

"Ah, we'd have a _point_?"

"Hells _yeah_ we'd have a point."

"Well then we couldn't be a tween group, you know. They don't have points."

"Hm. Alright."

"Here's a better idea. Let's take a year off and go cross-country. _More_ than cross-country, even—we can head from Atlantic to Pacific, then up into Canada—head back to the Atlantic, then from there go to Africa, Australia, Asia, and back again. Then we can go back to school, stunning our professors-to-be with our worldly wit and intellect, make astounding marks and come through in the end with large amounts of cash and perhaps a winter home in Maui."

Xigbar, whose future plans had been trounced in the span of five seconds, just stared a little dumbly at first, confessing: "Dude. You think about this shit way too much."

"I'm serious though. Wouldn't that be amazing? That's the kind of… the kind of adventure that makes life like living. Not just boring old school-college-job-marriage—not that deadly routine. You need adventure. _**I**_ need adventure."

Xigbar snorted—not because that was how he laughed, but simply because when he was around Luxord, the situation was usually appropriate enough for snorting. "Man, you keep talkin' about that shit and you're really gonna start tempting me," he said.

"Then I'll keep talking." Luxord didn't miss a beat, and Xigbar didn't know if he'd really planned all of it out ahead of time, or if he'd just become that good with speaking that he was capable of bullshitting nearly anything on the spot. Regardless, Xigbar fell victim to the captivating talk that was Luxord's, and he stared on mute and Luxord spun a picture for the two of them of what could be. He began: "First we could start down in Florida—tour the beaches, get crispy-tan—then take Route 1 all the way up the east coast to Maine. Completely different beaches in Maine—you can't get tan, you can just get cold. Then we'd go south again—west through New York and we'd stop in the city and go to a Broadway show. See the Great Lakes, drive for days, hit the coast, and then veer north into Canada before heading east, going and going until we saw the Atlantic again. All this we'd do on a motorbike, of course. No other way to do it."

"Now you're just joking."

"No joking here. Book a flight to Cape Town with as many connections and layovers as possible. Then get up to Cairo, catch a flight again to Melbourne and then see the Great Barrier Reef before it's even deader than it already is. From there it'd be Tokyo to Shanghai to Bangkok—and what the hell, we might as well go to New Zealand before coming back. I've wanted to go there ever since they made those crazy movies about the hobbits."

"Why not England?"

Flabbergasted, Luxord pulled a classic Hollywood move usually only used in ridiculous situations or moments of intense emotional response. For Luxord, the scene held both, so he did the move quite properly, pulling Xigbar's words fresh from his mouth: "Why not _England_?" he repeated. "Because I don't _want_ to go to England on my world-seeing adventures because I _know_ that world already. It's the same reason I wouldn't go downtown if I wanted something new and exciting in my life—downtown isn't exciting for me and I'm not exciting for it. You need variety and adventure, Xig. That's what makes it. I'll bet that's why you don't give a damn about anything, too—you've just never known anything but this old room of yours."

Then, with the eagerness of someone who'd been bottling something up for longer than he'd care to remember, Luxord suddenly went: "And I've been meaning to ask you this for years, but why on earth did you paint the walls in here _grey_, Xigbar?"

"…I don't really know." As though seeing it for the first time, Xigbar looked at each and every one of his four walls before slowly and steadily raising both eyebrows in picturesque confusion. "Actually, now that you mention it," he said, "I really don't have the slightest damn idea. Huh. …But anyway, man. That… trip stuff? Come on."

"Come on what? Come on let's go, or come on and stop being a blithering idiot?"

"The second one."

"I'm not—"

"Lux. Look. It's not really _like_ that, yanno? I know all those stupid, shitty books and movies wanna tell you otherwise, but the real world _isn't like that_. Kids grow up, they go to college, they get jobs, they get houses, they get hitched, they get kids of their own, and they get **old**. And then it happens all over again and there isn't anything else to it." Xigbar sighed, thought things over a second, and plodded on through his monologue, not quite knowing where he was going with any of it.

"I've got these horror films on a loop in my head," he said, "of me working a nine-to-five desk job with four kids and a wife who kicks me awake at two A.M. to tell me to shut up because I'm snoring. And every Saturday morning I read the paper and mow the lawn and then at night I smoke a pipe. A fucking _pipe_."

"Fascinating?"

"The worst part of it all is I've got glasses."

"Actually, I'll bet you'd look—"

"Fucking _awful_ with glasses."

"…Actually, I was going to—"

"This talking shit's depressing. Where'd the cat go?"

"Here."

The aforementioned cat was looking rather smug and comfortable curled up in Luxord's lap, and for just the briefest of moments, Xigbar actually felt a slight pang of jealousy. Maybe it was the ease with which the cat was just _there_—just known to _be_ there, just acting like it somehow _belonged_ there, like it was in its _place_. Or maybe it was because Xigbar's own lap was empty and his own body feeling a little shiver of loneliness on the other side of bed from boy and cat.

Whatever the reason, Xigbar's palms came up, hands held out towards Virtue. "C'mere."

"Okay."

And, most obligingly, Luxord rose up, cat spilling lamely out of his lap as he settled in for a hug between Xigbar's outstretched arms.

"Not you!"

"What?"

"I was talking to the cat!"

Xigbar's mouth was contorted into the most curious frown Luxord had never seen—and would never see, really, because his chin was still resting on Xigbar's shoulder, his eyes still focused on the grey wall across from him. Aside from words, Xigbar said nothing of the contact. Aside from words, Xigbar did nothing to prevent the contact. Luxord just sat there, arms around Xigbar for the longest while, and Xig started to get the feeling that the guy had gone and fallen asleep on him. Somehow. Meanwhile, Virtue sat off to one side, fixing them both with the annoyed, superior expression that only cats can maintain for so long.

Hugs are curious little beasts, stemmed from Great Mother Contact, which controls any and all number of things, ranging from basic sensory skills (_The stove feels hot, therefore I shall not touch_) to deeper, unexplainable human characteristics (_That boy? Oh, he killed someone because he wasn't hugged enough as a baby._) Touch is never overrated—cannot possibly _be_ overrated because it is so critically important to everything that makes a human so plainly human.

Xigbar had once asked Luxord what sex was like. This was because in sophomore year, Luxord had supposedly scored a home run with his beloved Busty, and the way the rumors were flying, there was no way it could not be true.

"How did it feel?" Xigbar had asked. They'd just gone rummaging at a junkyard some twenty miles out of town, Luxord then testing out his freshly printed license with a bit of distance travel and an old friend he hadn't seen in a while.

Xigbar couldn't forget the response. Not then, and probably not ever. It was this precise response Xigbar was awkwardly thinking of that night, enveloped in Luxord's hug, sitting on his bed—the end of Christmas Eve. He remembered how Luxord had paused, his hand lingering over the brake, the two of them still in the car at the junkyard parking lot—which was more a field of dirt than it was an actual lot. And he'd just kind of laughed. Turned to Xigbar and asked, "What did _what_ feel like?"

"Sex. You know… Doing… _it_."

"It felt like a hug."

"What?"

"You know. Just. Warm. It felt like a hug. Down south."

"A hug."

"Yeah."

"That's _it_?"

"Well it was a sexy hug, man, but the _feeling_. It's no different."

To that day, that cold December 24th, Xigbar still hadn't been able to figure out just what hug-like quality Luxord was trying to pin together with sex. Still a virgin, Xigbar had always assumed that people probably hugged a lot during sex. He assumed as much up until he started watching porn, and then after he discovered that people rarely hugged during The Act, he returned to complete and total cluelessness. Yet right then, in that hug, Xigbar had it figured out. There was a definite physical pull that started in the center of the chest and expanded to the lungs and spine and brain, and a comfort and safety that Xig had honestly never thought necessary in his short and insignificant little life.

Realizing this, he also realized that the two of them had been hugging there on his bed for at least a good three minutes or so, and though Luxord hadn't moved an inch, even Virtue had given up on them and was then giving himself a bath.

Xigbar cleared his throat, and said again—quieter this time—"I was talking to the cat, Lux."

And that was how Luxord pulled away, and how it came to be that several seconds of silence transpired between the two of them, during which each was expecting the other to say something first. When it became painfully apparent that Xigbar's '_WELL, what was THAT about?_' expression wasn't going away any time soon, Luxord just shrugged. "…How was I to know anyway? Cat doesn't know what you're saying. No sense talking to it for that," he said. Xigbar just blinked. "Hm. Awkward."

"Why's your hand on my leg?"

"Huh. Lookit that. I don't know how that happened."

"Well un-happen it and let's go eat."

"Xigbar?"

"Huh."

"Un-happen isn't a word."

"Mad sleuthin' skills, Sherlock. Keep up the stellar performance." And though Xigbar slid off the bed and made a beeline the bedroom door, intent on making a final exit, he couldn't do it. Luxord was sitting on his bed, only his face and one shoulder illuminated by butter-light thrown in from the yellow hallway. So Xigbar stood, waited, then finally caved, going: "…What _is_ it?"

"Well, if un-happen isn't a word, I certainly can't un-happen it," Luxord told him quite bluntly.

And though there were at least four and fifty rude responses Xig probably could've thrown back, he couldn't muster up any of them at that moment because the fact remained that Luxord was utterly right. It would be like telling someone to go gimblewatt the cow, and Xigbar was about ninety-eight percent sure that gimblewatt was not a word either. So to tell someone to go and gimblewatt anything was to risk having a serious misunderstanding on your hands—as was telling someone to go un-happen something. Without clear and meaningful words, a person could go and screw up all sorts of things, maybe thinking "to gimblewatt" was a synonym for "to murder" or "to jay-walk." Any number of things could go terribly wrong.

So, leaving it at that, Xigbar sighed rather theatrically, conceded defeat, and then called Luxord an idiotic asshole, to which Luxord did nothing more than laugh, clap Xigbar on the back, and then follow him downstairs to the dining room, where Luxord was grilled on both academia and the glorious talent tree spread far and wide along the horizon of his future. Xigbar did nothing more than watch.

An hour later, at the front door, Luxord said his farewells and his happy holidays, and Xigbar—for whatever reason—followed him outside to his car.

"I have something for you," Luxord told him. And into his hand was pressed a sloppily wrapped little package—no bow, no ribbon, just some tape and some wrapping paper featuring baby penguins sporting Santa hats and jingle bells. Xigbar probably would've taken the opportunity to make a bad joke, but he was too busy trying to come up with an excuse in his head as to why he didn't have anything to give Luxord.

_It's still at the store—I had to order it._

_Better yet: I ordered it off__**line**__ and it's not here yet._

_Kurt lost it._

_I dropped it off at your house, but your insane sister took it when I got there and I don't know where it is now, but you better ask her because I think she said something about piranhas before she closed the door in my face._

…_Kurt lost it again._

…_It's all Kurt's fault._

Lucky for Xigbar, he wasn't given the chance to embarrass himself further, because Luxord patted him once, then twice on the shoulder, hand lingering just briefly enough to be unnoticeable. "I'll see you around, right?" he asked. And he got into the car, pulled out of the driveway, and it was all quite poetic and profound when it started snowing as his car vanished around the bend.

"Bruh—Merry Christmas," Xigbar said to no one in particular. Realizing this was the case, Xig blinked, hated himself ridiculously, and smacked himself upside the head with his own spare hand, the other of which was still clutching Luxord's gift—whatever it was.

"…Dang it."

(x) (x) (x)

Sooo. I'm trying to pick up the pace a bit without making anything too jarring. There's still a bit of distance to be covered before any honest-to-dog Luxord-on-Xigbar action takes place. (I just re-read that sentence, and I swear I read it as "Horse-on-Dog" which is just all sorts of wrong, you don't even want to know.)

Sorry for the slow updates… I can't say it'll get better, because… well. It probably won't. But I _can_ safely say that summer is almost here—yay! Hopefully I'll be able to finish up some fics once I get into May.


	7. Kick That LoverBird

How To Do Nothing At All

**How To Do Nothing At All**

'Kick That Lover-Bird'

As soon as he was free from the clutches of whoever-that-doctor's-name was on the morning of the 26th, Xigbar motored himself on over to Luxord's, only to be greeted by someone who was definitely… **not** Luxord.

"Uh. Hi, Larxene."

"Shrimpy."

Larxene, believe it or not, was the first woman Xigbar had ever seen naked, on film or off it. Mostly this was because he had been smitten with her for about two months when he was ten years old—some time after he and Luxord had cemented their friendship and Luxord had tactfully decided that the only real way for them to be best friends forever was for Xigbar to marry into his family. The fact that Larxene was already engaged and _living_ with her fiancée was either not addressed at all or was deemed a non-issue entirely. Either way, Xigbar had once seen her bare all through a slight gap in the open bathroom door, and about two weeks after that, his infatuation with her had ended and he realized that she was borderline crazy and often exhibited a curious tendency to screech like a banshee over the slightest thing.

That is to say, she was a nice girl, but not someone he'd be willing to spend the rest of his life with. He wished Marluxia the best.

"Luxord home?" he asked her right then, standing in the doorway and wondering when she was going to realize that it was ten degrees outside and was most likely dropping fast.

"He's in the basement," she said, "but… He's got company right now."

Xigbar blinked, paused, and then looked over his shoulder. Sure enough, parked right by the front curb was a happy little Volkswagen. He didn't know how he'd missed it the first time. Awkwardly, he turned back around, grinning sheepishly at Larxene, who was still standing in the doorway. His grin made her lower her barriers somewhat and she even allowed herself a small, sinister sort of smirk.

"Oh. Uh. …Is now a bad time?" he asked.

"Fucked if I know. Just wait up here. She said she'd just be a minute anyways."

_Aw, great. It's Busty. Who __**else**__ could it be._ Xigbar tried to pretend he wasn't really contemplating throwing a brick Busty's car outside, instead settling down on the leather couch Larxene directed him to. She started to leave the room, hesitated, and then tossed him the nearby remote. "Here," she said.

"Thanks…"

And like that, she disappeared.

Xigbar had never spent a great deal of time in Luxord's living room, mostly because it had very little of Luxord in it and seemed more centered around the lives he'd temporarily wedged himself into—that is, the lives of his sister and Marluxia. Pictures of the couple stood framed here and there on whatever shelf space there was that could be occupied without looking tacky. They weren't corny or trite—some of them might even have been called artistic—but they were full of character, Xigbar had to hand it to them. The fact that Larxene looked about ready to bite the head off the photographer in more than half of the photos left Xigbar smiling.

Of course, any and all warm and fuzzy thoughts were instantly shot to pieces when he heard a set of footsteps rounding the hall and laid eyes on the girl he'd never forgiven for stealing his best bud away from him for so many years.

"_Xigbar_?"

There she stood, in all her glory. She was exactly as Xigbar had seen her last time, even though 'last time' must have been more than six months ago. She wore black and looked good in it, and for all that it was supposed to be a slimming, flattening color, it only flattened undesirable areas, leaving her other endowments just as large and noticeable as they always were. If he hadn't held such a strong dislike for the poor girl, he might actually have blushed. As it was, his expression was nothing other than blank and stupid when she greeted him with a warm smile.

"Hey, Xigbar," she said.

"Bus--? Er. Buh..."

"…_Tifa_. Remember? Huh. You'd _think_ you'd remember me. Me, the one who set you up on all those nice dates."

"Yeah. Your name was on the tip of my tongue."

'Awkward' could not even begin to describe the scene. Xigbar couldn't imagine why the hell Luxord hadn't come upstairs. Even with _Luxord_ there, at least things would've been somewhat bearable. But with her just standing there like she was, Xigbar felt like she expected him to say something. And the trouble was that he didn't know what on earth he could be expected to say. He didn't even _want_ to say anything. He just wanted her to _go_. But she stood around, she put her hands in the pockets of her black wool skirt, she looked him over long and hard and she just stood there waiting. Xigbar wanted to _punch_ her and he didn't know why, but thank goodness he was a man of some gentle persuasion. …To a degree.

"So… you heard, I take it?" Tifa asked him. And suddenly she looked positively miserable, and for all that Xigbar had wanted to render her face inwards mere seconds ago, he couldn't help but feel a little twinge of sympathy for her in the very bottom of his chest, somewhere near his spleen.

"Uh." _She's probably still way torn up about the whole break-up thing. But still. That was, like, what? Months ago now? Man, you think she'd be over it_. But apparently Tifa wasn't over it at all, because her sad expression didn't go away with Xigbar's stupid bluntness, and even when he said, "Yeah. Sorry about that," she hardly batted an eye.

"Tell Luxord, not me. He's downstairs," she told him.

"I know."_ I was waiting for you to get in your dumbass car and leave already._

"Make him feel better, okay?"

"Right." And, not waiting for Tifa to get another word in edgewise, Xigbar leapt to his feet and bolted for the basement door. If he found Luxord in the midst of putting on his pants, he was going to have to have a serious conversation with the boy about what exactly it meant to be 'over a relationship' with someone. Because as far as Xigbar was concerned, when you were over, you were _over_. There should have been no basement rendezvous and there should have been no simpering little idiotic requests that Xigbar coddle poor, broken-up Luxord.

Thankfully, Luxord was in no state of undress whatsoever when Xigbar reached him. He was tucked away in a corner of his basement, seated in front of a card table which, at that particular moment, was strewn with bits and pieces of metal and plastic and rubber and trash, all of which Xigbar could instantly recognize as products of their days spent rummaging. He looked down towards his left hand. In it, he held Luxord's Christmas gift, and somewhere on his wrist and under the sleeves of his sweatshirt hung Luxord's own gift to him. It had been a perfect spring, silver and glowing and strange all at once, with a simple leather band circling from one end to the other, stretching the pieces of metal horizontally across the skin. A bracelet, but a charmingly _manly_ bracelet, if such a thing was possible.

Needless to say, Xigbar had been impressed when he'd opened it. For something that had once been a piece of junk, it looked surprisingly artsy and well made. …So yes. He was impressed. …Impressed, and strangely touched.

"Yo, Lux."

"Xigbar!" He looked up from his masses of wire and metal and junk and shot the other a beaming smile. He was dressed from head to toe in black, and Xigbar figured that all those bright colors before the holidays must have really done in everyone's eyes or something. Either way, the effect on Luxord was rather striking, and he ended up looking a little like Kenneth Branagh's portrayal of Hamlet. That is, if Xigbar had ever seen Kenneth Branagh's _Hamlet_, that's precisely what he would've thought.

"How's it comin'?" Xig asked.

"Ehh, hard to say. How's it going with you? Get any nice loot? I'll bet you did. Prooobably not lucky enough to score a new, fresh-smelling car, though?" Hopping up from his chair, Luxord laughed and sat down right away on the overstuffed sofa, where Xigbar had already taken up sitting.

"There's nothing wrong with my car," Xigbar told him. "And anyway. What's with all the black, man?"

"You don't like it? Well. Truth be told, even I can't pocket a Christmas dinner and not look like a barrel the next morning. Black is supposed to be slimming, huh."

Xigbar thought about this a moment. He thought about it long and hard and wondered if he, too, looked like a barrel in his pine green sweatshirt and cargo pants. Probably. It was a sad truth he didn't want to accept, but there it was all the same.

As an abrupt change of topic, Xigbar simply tossed his little package up and over his own lap so as it could land in Luxord's. "Here," he said. And what it _was_ landing in Luxord's lap was a colossal wad of purple tissue paper encircled at least twenty times with black electric tape. "We ran out of real wrapping 'cause of Christmas…" he explained rather lamely.

"You didn't have to get me any—"

"Shut up. Yeah I did."

Lux grinned. "You're right," he said. It must have taken him at least five minutes of devoted, one-track thought and planning to unwrap the damn thing, but it appeared worth it in the end. Not many people might have shared Xigbar's appreciation for the strange, the ugly, and the wonderful things of the world, but Luxord wasn't one of them. He reveled in the freakish and the horrifically mal-styled dresses on the red carpet just as he had taken one look at Virtue on the day of his very birth and known that he had to own that disturbed, wronged cat that had come rolling out of his mother's swollen womb as a glaring error upon the face of the earth.

So when, from the ripped paper and stretched tape, Luxord revealed the dead ugliest hat to ever have graced the human eye with its appalling presence, he could not gain control of the grin that took over his face. "Predictably, it's brilliant," he simply said. The thing looked part Russian, part beaver, and a very small fraction Hicksville-hunter-plaid, though that could have just been Luxord willing it to be even uglier than it truly was.

"I figured it was dumb enough to suit your tastes." Xigbar leaned back, intent, it seemed, on sinking his body as far into that bedraggled old couch as he possibly could. He felt something weird in the air, like a mold, like a vapor, like a cloud of pollen, or like any other mildly obnoxious, possibly hazardous thing that contaminated the world's supply of O2. Whatever it was, it was strange and disconcerting and he was almost fairly certain that this _thing_ he was picking up on was some emotional or hormonal roll of odor and feeling just pouring off of Luxord's body beside him.

"You alright?" he asked Luxord.

"Yeah."

"Busty was upstairs," he said after a moment.

"Yeah."

"I thought you two were were…?" And for another moment, Xigbar made as though to snip his index and middle finger together like a pair of scissors, but rethought that and just kind of dangled his hand midair like there was maybe some vague, unintelligible reason for its being there.

Eying the hand warily, Luxord blinked. He was only slightly tempted to wonder if Xigbar would strike him where he sat were he to say something the slightest bit wrong. "We are," Lux said. "Split, I mean." Xigbar shrugged, waved his hand a little in something that only remotely resembled a dismissive gesture, and returned to staring at the wall, face the perfect definition of impassive. "…Nothing bothers you, does it?" Luxord suddenly asked him.

"Huh?"

Luxord paused, like he was chewing his words over slowly and carefully, like a hefty piece of fish with all the bones still sharp and intact. "I mean, nothing… _bothers_ you," he told Xigbar. "Things happen. It doesn't faze you in the least. Why's that?"

"I dunno. I just… don't… _care_, I guess."

"About anything?"

And then it was Xigbar's turn to think, because he'd been asked that question so many times in his life, that by that point he was just _waiting_ for it to spring up again as some sort of trick question, some sort of joke to get him on the line. But, after thinking it through, he decided there wasn't a single possible thing that Luxord could have to use this against him, so he spoke the plain truth. "Care about anything? No. Not really. Now that you mention it. I mean, I _care_, but. I don't **care**. Because, like, I don't care enough to do anything. So it kinda negates it out. Yanno?"

Lux fixed him with a heavy stare, and the response was more than obvious before it even left his mouth like a sigh. "Not really, no," he confessed, and just sort of shook his head in what appeared to be surrender. He closed his eyes, he rubbed his temples, and he muttered a single word: "Tired…"

"Hey, I can always bounce, man. Come back later—I just wanted to—"

"It's fine. Just stay a while."

"Oh…'kay." Xigbar decided to sit it out, to set in for the long haul to—to—well, to simply sit there in silence long enough until the silence really got to him. It got to him so bad, he felt the urge to start making shit up, just so he'd be able to talk about it. And it got him to making such shit up that he went and said a very, very foolish thing, though he certainly didn't know it at the time. "So, I tell you I figured out the letter?" he asked the wall, though the question was aimed at Luxord, who instantly looked up and blinked, wide-eyed.

"You did?" went Lux.

"Yup."

"Annnd so…?"

"Axel and Roxas. I'll bet you anything it was between them and Roxas thought it was Demyx or something. And then that would—"

This was interrupted by a _PFFTHFF_ sound that was most likely Luxord's tongue forcing projectile spittle from his mouth into the air around him. Xigbar tried not to be mildly offended. Luxord just rolled his eyes, raised a brow, and shot him this incredulous sort of look. "You're kidding, right?"

"No. It makes sense, don't you think?" said Xigbar.

"Just watch TV," said Luxord.

And so the two of them proceeded to watch an hour of the Discovery channel in relative silence. It just so came to pass that sitting upright on the couch took too much effort. And having never been a huge fan of expelling tremendous amounts of effort over much of anything—least of all when watching TV—Xigbar chose to lie down. And wonder that all wonders were, there was enough space on that couch for Xigbar and Luxord to both lie down at exactly the same time, right after Luxord took the back cushions off the couch and pitched them across to the other sign of the room. After that, it was smooth sailing as far as Xigbar could see. He was just starting to drift off when Luxord's voice, quiet and strangely personal, called him back to consciousness.

"Best friends don't lie on couches like this," he was saying.

Xigbar, not having the slightest idea where on earth this was coming from out of Luxord's pea brain, just responded instantly and stupidly. "But best friends _do_ watch TV," he reasoned.

"So do dogs," argued Luxord.

"No, dogs can't see 2D."

"Bullshit. Yes they can."

"No they can't."

"Yes. Xigbar. They can. You're thinking of color. Dogs are _color_blind. Not dimension…a…lly… _blind_."

"No, I **know** what I'm thinking. It's 2D. …_And_ color, but that's not the point—the point is they can't watch TV." Xigbar made as though to cross his arms like it was something final, and he probably would've succeeded quite well if Luxord hadn't rolled on his side to face him, thereby trapping one of arms under his ribcage in the process. This wasn't too big a deal—Luxord, in Xigbar's mind, weighed about as much as the average teenage girl or a dog of unusually large size, and all things considered, it really wasn't _too_-too much.

"Dogs see 2D objects," Lux insisted.

"No. They don't."

"Who're _you_ to talk? You don't care about anything anyway!" Although this seemed completely off-topic and irrelevant—and although it actually was both, as you the reader can probably testify—Xigbar was unable to object, simply because Xigbar made a habit of not objecting to things that were quite obviously true. His not caring about anything was, at that particular point in time, _quite obviously true_. So he did the next best thing to defending himself and just flat out lied.

"Well I care about _this_," he said. "Dogs can't see 2D. **Period**."

Luxord stared at him, then picked up the remote, pointed it directly at Xigbar's nose and proceeded to jab the mute button repeatedly. "I wonder if this will work," he muttered.

"Fuck you," Xigbar said, single-handedly proving the inefficiency of television remotes once and for all.

"Language, language," Luxord reminded him. But he smiled while he said it, so Xigbar knew that he was either kidding or serious-while-still-being-somewhat-amused, which—either way—was perfectly fine.

The way Luxord radiated heat was a strange thing, Xig noticed right then, because it wasn't constant when it happened. There would be moments when Luxord was perfectly warm—perhaps warmer than he should have been—and then some moments later, he would become significantly cooler. And Xigbar managed to write it off in his head as either a draft, a vent, or a hallucination drummed up as a byproduct of dehydration, but whatever it was, it made Xigbar study Luxord's body because he wanted to make sure the boy was breathing alright. His chest was moving in and out just fine—not fast, not slow—he blinked at a normal rate, his breath came in puffs against Xig's face at a normal rate, and everything but his damn body temperature seemed to be operating at a painfully normal rate that did nothing but confuse poor, clueless Xigbar.

"You remember that time when I asked you if we'd be friends forever?" came some sudden words from Luxord's mouth—all of which proceeded to roll against Xigbar's face, just like his breath had come moments before. And yet of _course_ Xigbar remembered! How could he have forgotten? He could remember it clear as day, and were he not in such an awkward position at that moment, he might well have told Luxord just that—just _how_ he remembered the two of them walking around the block to pass summer time while Xigbar's step dad filled up the inflatable pool. Just _how_ Luxord had suggested they cut through the woods because it would be cooler that way, less scorching under the shade. And just _how_ Luxord had asked him, in that strange, trusting way that only children can ask such a question: _Can we be friends forever, Xig?_

Even Xigbar, at the time, had found the question stupid and childish. Children of eight and some months were used to facts like death, distance, and the unavoidable fate of separation. Xigbar was aware of all these. So—he had thought—was Luxord. Yet for the other boy to have asked him this so totally out of the blue, so trusting in Xigbar's response that never really _did_ come out right—it just showed a severe misconception of life on Lux's part. At least, that's what Xigbar was inclined to think at the time. And even two years after that day, when talked into marrying Larxene in his future, Xigbar had still thought that_: Luxord doesn't have the slightest stupid idea what he's saying, but I'll play along anyway just for the heck of it._ And even right then, sitting there on that couch in Luxord's basement, Xigbar still thought exactly as he did before. Nothing had changed in him since.

He said nothing because he already felt the air next to him being sucked into Luxord's lungs before the boy spoke.

"So you remember what you said to me then?" Lux asked.

"…Ye-ah…"

"You said '_We'll see_.'" Luxord waited a second, then let out a deep chuckle that came from his chest and out of his mouth like any from-the-heart laughter rightfully should have. "_'We'll see'_?" he went. "What kind of a response is that for a kid to give to that kind of a question?"

"It's a… realistic response, duh! I already knew Busty was gonna come charrrging into your life. I could sense it from years away."

"Well, whatever you say. It cut deep."

"Wow, emotional much?"

"It's the truth. You wonder why I didn't try to stay so in touch with you all those years. Maybe you weren't really giving off the vibe that _you_ wanted to be in touch with _me_," came Luxord's reply.

…This was something that had never crossed Xigbar's mind. And it showed on his face—most noticeably in his mouth, which started hanging slightly ajar at that point—and stayed there for almost an entire minute. It had never even _occurred_ to him that he could possibly have been the slightest bit at fault for Luxord's apparent abandonment of him. It had never even _dawned_ on him that he might have been the one who was too resentful or distant or lazy to keep the friendship going. And it was creepy—creepy as hell for Xigbar to realize that everything he'd been thinking for the past few years maybe have been nothing more than a total, ugly misconception on his part.

"Xig?"

"Z…urrr…"

"You're always so eloquent it just makes me damn near speechless, I tell you."

"You're serious? You think… You mean…"

"Oh come on, Xigbar. Every time I'd try to hang out with you, you never wanted to do anything. And you'd get this bored look on your face like you had a whole world of better things you could be doing at that moment—anything but sitting around with stupid old me."

Were Xigbar the sort of person who was always on the defensive, always packing a prepared punch for whatever slight misjudgment someone might form against him, he probably would've mentioned that doing nothing was just _what he __**did**_. And the glazed look he got in his eyes while doing nothing was not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, Xigbar's eyes looked that way about seventy percent of the time anyway, simply because he did nothing so frequently.

"What's more," Luxord went on, "is that whenever we _were_ doing something, you'd still seem bored. It was just… very strange, I guess. Like nothing I did could entertain you."

"I _was_ entertained," Xigbar said. He tried not to sound bitter or petulant, but he sort of failed miserably. "It really doesn't take much to entertain me. So it's not like you can really fail at it, Lux." And Xigbar went on to explain in a very careful, articulate sort of way (or at least, it came across that way in his mind), just _why_ he didn't ever do anything and just _why_ boredom rarely existed for him because he got so much pleasure out of doing absolutely nothing in the first place. And it was only when he'd reached the halfway point of his glorious explanation that he realized he'd gone and lost the one and only member of his audience, as Luxord's eyes had been closed for the past five minutes and there was absolutely no indication whatsoever that the boy was even listening anymore.

Which, truth be told, he wasn't.

"Uhhh, Lux?"

"I'm in the middle of a nap, if it's quite alright with you. Watch the television."

_Okay. Whatev's. Like I wanted you to understand me anyway, you stupid moron._

So Xigbar watched TV.

And he watched TV.

…And he _watched_ TV.

"…Luxord."

"Mrr."

"Lux."

"_What_? There's no pleasing you, is there?"

"Dude, my arm's asleep. And I gotta pee like _crazy_."

"Hold it for another half hour."

"It's _critical_, man!"

"Fine. Wuss."

Upstairs in Luxord's bathroom, Xigbar was feeling curiously lightheaded. He couldn't figure out why, choosing to blame it on either a lack of water or on the sudden rush of blood back into his living arm, which, at that moment, was awkwardly splashing around under the rushing water of the faucet, as it still prickled with that pins and needles feeling. He hadn't minded Luxord needing a nap and he hadn't minded hanging around while his friend dozed on his arm. But what he had minded was that one solitary comment that Luxord had made. _"Best friends don't lie on couches like this."_ If best friends didn't lie on couches like that, how on earth were best friends to lay on couches at all, then?

As far back as he could remember—and Xigbar made a point right then to stretch his mind to its absolute limits and cast that net of recollection back as damn far as it could go—the two of them had always shared couches like that. There was no sense in each of them only having one _half_ of the stupid couch. And there was even less sense in each of them lying in opposite directions with their teenage-boy feet stuck up in one another's faces. So the only sensible way to share a couch was just the way they'd been doing it for years, and that was that. And that was simply all there was.

Looking up in the mirror, he sighed for no particular reason, and then noticed something that really shouldn't have been noticed at all. Mostly because what he noticed really shouldn't have existed. Period.

What it was, actually, was a very small, very sprightly depiction of Luxord hovering over his shoulder.

"_You're not a chick!"_ said this curious little man.

But then, from the opposite shoulder, came another voice—and much to Xigbar's horror, as soon as he looked in the mirror, he saw Axel perched and talking, about the size of a large strawberry. _"You don't have to be a chick to dig a dude," _this Axel so politely informed that Luxord.

"…WAUGH?" Xigbar intelligently asked. Neither the miniature Luxord nor the miniature Axel seemed to pay him any mind. Clearly, Xigbar was under some sort of stress/trauma/bad-food induced hallucination, and all he could do was stand there as a victim to whatever terrible games his mind saw fit to play on him.

So, the banter continued.

Little Luxord thought over Little Axel's words, and after a moment he nodded his agreement. _"Quite the __**truth**__, I'd say." _

"_But yanno," _Little Axel said, turning to the mirror to address Xigbar,_ "if you bang him, you'll get the gay."_

…Xigbar didn't know what this meant, but it didn't sound good.

"_You're not making a joke out of AIDS, I hope," _came another voice, and for some bizarre reason, a very small form of Roxas appeared on top of Xigbar's head, as well.

"_I'm not!"_ insisted Little Axel._ "I'm not making a joke out of anything! This is serious business! A dude who bangs another dude is __**going**__ to get the gay! Period! Amen!"_

"_Well, he does have a point, Xigbar," _said Little Luxord.

"_Hey guys! What's that mean?" _And before Xigbar could do much of anything to stop it—not that he could've done anything at all to stop it at all, really—Kairi was on the scene, even smaller than she was in real life. Xigbar had never before thought it possible. She was dangling from his ponytail and he didn't feel a damn thing.

"_What's what mean?" _Little Axel asked.

"'_Get the gay'," _said Little Kairi.

"_Well, it's just that Xiggy here is feeling a little, ah… a little sex-u-al ten-si-on between him and his bee-eff-eff." _Xigbar took some small, miniscule comfort in the fact that Axel in real life was nowhere near as obnoxious as his hallucinated form.

"_Ohhh. I get it." _Little Kairi nodded and continued to swing back and forth on Xigbar's ponytail, and Xigbar's mind was a whirlwind of confusion because he still couldn't feel his hair moving, but it sure did look like it had a dinky woman dangling from it as far as the mirror was concerned. She pursed her lips and waved her feet and then she said,_ "Well, Xigbar. There is a reason I didn't want to go out with you. We just don't have the same meat to swap, if you know what—"_

Lucky for you—and no doubt lucky for Xigbar as well—there came a knock at the door that instantly broke him free of his deranged mind, leaving him delightfully alone in a bathroom with no pixie demons in sight whatsoever. Not taking the chance to let it happen again, Xigbar threw that door open as fast as he possibly could, bolting towards freedom and straight into Luxord's sad, waiting form. "AUUGH." And as soon as Luxord had recovered from the impact, he realized that his darling friend almost appeared to be clawing at his own eyes.

"…Xigbar?" Lux ventured.

"**JE**SUS!"

"Hi."

"Oh _GOD_!"

"Yeah. Anyway. Microwave hot dog?" Luxord offered, holding the little meat stick out towards Xigbar, all wrapped and cozy in its bun. Ordinarily, it would have instantly gone down Xigbar's throat, never to see the light of day again. But with Little Kairi's words still ringing through his poor ears, Xigbar just gulped thickly and declined in what he deemed the best way possible.

"No… th-thanks. I'm off… pork," he said.

"You're Muslim now?" Luxord asked him.

"No."

"And anyway, it's beef."

"I'm off that, too."

If Luxord was catching onto anything, it most certainly wasn't the precarious state of mind his best friend had found himself in during his bathroom adventures. In fact, it was so drastically off-mark that Xigbar probably would have laughed in Luxord's face, had he not been so preoccupied with his own… well, precarious state of mind, as mentioned.

"If you tell me you're going on a diet on _top_ of getting cosmetic surgery, I'm committing suicide," swore Luxord.

"I'm not going on a diet," Xigbar swore in return.

And after something that appeared to be a fine, well-crafted mixture of thought and humor, Luxord just grinned and said, "…You know, I would much rather you go on a diet than get surgery."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean, huh?"

"Nothing, nothing! Just saying is all. Juuust saying." Luxord's words, accompanied by that two-parts-evil, one-part-completely-satanic grin he wore right then could only have made Xigbar worry. But strangely enough, what Xig was thinking about at that very moment wasn't centered around his weight or his face or anything having to do with him at all.

"Xig? You feeling alright?"

In fact, what Xigbar was thinking about at that very moment was what had gone on—or… not gone on, depending on how you looked at it—in the bathroom some minutes ago. Even though he could more than readily accept the nonexistence of his Little Friends, Xigbar had a bit more trouble accepting the fact that everything they said was completely and totally out of the blue. That is to say, Xigbar had figured out right then that something somewhere somehow had triggered those messed-up little words they'd 'spoken' into being. The question was, what? Was it Xigbar's own deranged mind pinning some sexuality on Luxord that wasn't really there at all? Or… was it?

Tilting his head very carefully and very slowly, Xigbar brought two hands up, perfectly parallel in front of his stomach. He swallowed, thought over his words long and hard, and then said: "…Are you…?" …And promptly froze up, because the next word just would _not_ come out.

Curious, Luxord waited… waited some more… and then got a little impatient and couldn't resist the urge to jab Xigbar's arm. "Am I?" he prodded.

"You know?" Xigbar's hands were kind of making these loopy-ish motions right around then—the fingers of his left hand struggling to make a loose fist and the index finger of his right hand kind of poking against this fist rather lamely.

"Is this charades?" Luxord asked him. Xigbar's expression was a definite '_No, you idiot, this is not charades_' but his hands were a definite '_It most certainly is—come play with me!_' as they continued to mimic some obscure action or other. "Pencil sharpener!" Luxord guessed. Xigbar scowled darkly and stabbed his left hand violently with his index finger once more, still struggling to get the right words out of his mouth all the while.

"Toilet plunger!" went Luxord. And then, when that didn't work, "…Vagina?"

Grabbing onto this—for what little it was worth—Xigbar said, "No, the… the _opposite_ of a vagina."

Thoroughly stumped by that point, Luxord scratched his chin. "…What on _earth_ is the opposite of a vagina?" he wondered aloud.

And when he heard it put like that and realized how completely nonsensical it was, Xigbar just made a few incoherent noises and then settled for simply saying: "…I… well… I'm not… I have no idea."

"Well. At least they don't pop _those_ questions on the SATs, am I right?" Luxord said with a laugh.

"Are you gay?"

And instantly, all laughter stopped.

Xigbar, regretting what he'd just gone and said, regained all control over his limbs and his previously restless little hands became even more restless as he proceeded to pinwheel them wildly around his body. This succeeding in distracting Luxord temporarily, but the dumbfounded expression he'd just been wearing returned full force some seconds later. So, feeling the need to make amends, Xigbar started talking.

"Ah. Yanno? Okay. Yanno what? Totally forget I just asked you that, I just—"

And then, feeling the need to explain something, Luxord started talking as well. "Actually, really Xigbar, it's oka—"

"—was in the bathroom and I guess I'm freakin' dehydrated or some seeerious shit 'cause—"

"—don't want to make you feel weird and I—"

"—heard Kairi talking about swapping meat, and I don't even **know** what that—"

"—not the end of the world, not a disease or anything, and—"

"—I had to ask you in a fit of sick, twisted delirium."

"—and I hope you're not disturbed."

The two boys stared blankly at one another, neither of them having the slightest idea as to what had just taken place, but neither of them having the balls to admit to it, either. So Xigbar studied Luxord's face and Luxord studied Xigbar's face and once each of them came to the very wrong conclusion that the other knew perfectly well everything that was going on, they both started nodding their heads rather moronically and grinning rather stupidly. Really, the whole picture was quite hilarious if you were there—which you weren't—so pay it no mind now that I mention it.

"Well, good!" Luxord said.

"Yeah!" Xigbar said.

"So you… got all that, right?"

"Oh yeah. Yeah. Definitely."

"_Great_. So. You're not mad then?" Luxord asked him.

Like a slow-creeping bug making its steady way up a very vertical wall, an uneasy and similarly-creeping feeling began to come over Xigbar. "…Why would I be mad?" he asked cautiously.

"Well, I wrote **you** the letter, Xig. I thought you figured that out."

If the world could spin right out from under a single individual's feet, that's precisely what would've happened that moment. And if Xigbar hadn't known any better—and he didn't know _much_ better, mind you—he almost would've assumed he was dying, because it felt as though his entire life was flashing before his eyes. Really, all that was flashing before his eyes was Luxord's hand, waving back and forth in front of his blanked-out face. But in front of the _hand_ played back all the images and events of the past few weeks, calling back to mind the letter, the mystery, and the rekindled friendship it'd brought about.

Still trying to get his mind around it all, Xigbar was aware of Luxord calling his name—"…Xigbar?"—but didn't say anything in response. All that time, then, Luxord had just been dragging him along? For the hell of it? For some perverted homosexual pleasure it gave him? …Well, alright. Xigbar knew that much wasn't the case. But still, the entire thing was a bit too much to take in all at once, so it was a wonder his brain wasn't quite choking to death. Not that his performance was _stellar_—

"Um. Xig? …Are you alright?"

But, given the circumstances, it could have been so much worse.

"Whoa," he finally said.

"…See, I, well… I can explain, you know."

"_Whoa_."

"Xigbar, you're worrying me."

"So… you **are**?"

Luxord stilled, let the pause between them grown fat, heavy, and oppressive, and then said: "Gay? I—well—yes—that's what I said, Xigbar, I just said it, were you—were your ears not really—Xigbar?"

The fragmented speech could only have been attributed to one thing and one thing alone, and that thing just happened to be complete and total confusion because Xigbar hopped up and made for the door at that very moment. All the while, he was babbling some nonsense over his shoulder and Luxord was just sitting there at the kitchen table the entire time, alternating between giving his best friend the quizzical expression he deserved and giving the lemon-and-tomato pattered wallpaper the equally quizzical expression which it, too, was deserving of.

It is a sad truth in life that many revelations hit us one after another after another, leaving us little to no time to recover between impacts. So while Xigbar went on and on—"I just realized I left Virtue at home all alone and the dishwasher is on and the coffee machine's running and there's a fire in the fireplace, so I better—" Luxord was wondering how the hell he'd spent so many years of his life in such a completely ridiculous kitchen.

And only when Xigbar's hand actually reached the kitchen door and turned the knob rather sharply and rather suddenly did Luxord look up, look desperate, and go, "No, wait!"

He stood up, like any proper gent would've undoubtedly done in such a situation, and grabbed Xigbar's arm. And Xigbar, suddenly playing the role of the coy woman who just couldn't be alone in the same room as her lover, fluttered his eyes and pleaded: "No, no—really gotta go!" Or at least, it went similarly along those lines—perhaps with a shade less fluttering involved.

"You can wait five minutes!" Luxord insisted.

"No I can't! My house might—" _Might what? Burn down? Start spewing flaming cat hair from the windows? Where the hell was I going with any of this? And why won't he let go of my arm?_

"Would you just calm the hell down?"

Xigbar had never seen a look so completely wrenching, so completely paralyzing coming from Luxord, so rather than being wrenched or paralyzed, Xigbar was simply stunned into doing something very stupid. So he was stunned in to flailing around like the fool he was, landing an elbow on Luxord's shoulder and a knee to Luxord's thigh, all of which succeeded in driving both boys to the ground, seeing as Luxord still had a very firm and unwavering grip on his arm. It occurred to Xigbar, however briefly, that it had only been some days ago in which they'd found themselves in almost the exact same position. But right there, right then, right in Luxord's kitchen, it seemed so terrifyingly different from when they'd fallen right over one another in Roxas' sprawling backyard.

And it was even more terrifyingly different as Luxord applied every last ounce of his body weight against Xigbar in an effort to keep his still-flailing body pinned to the ground.

"Augh! What're you doing?" Xigbar damn near howled.

"Oh, shut up, I just want to talk to you and, and, and you're not even _listening_, you great big idiot!"

"Just get off! You're breaking my ribs!"

"Well fight back or something, you—"

"I _can't_! You're _on_ me!"

"Oh **please**, like I'm even—"

And, as in so many comic adventures of epic proportions, that was precisely the moment in which the least likely—and least wanted—of all witnesses made herself present. Larxene, one hand on her hip and the other splayed against the doorframe to the adjacent living room, surveyed both boys with a critical eye that soon lost its criticism and took on a gleam of raw amusement.

"…What are you guys doing."

"Larxene!" Mashing his hand against Xigbar's nose in the process, Luxord looked up at his older sister, blinked a few times, and then allowed his mouth to wiggle about in a desperate (and entirely failed) attempt to explain himself.

"…Luxord. I'm sleeping. You know what that means, right?" Larxene asked. Her eyes had dropped their amusement and her voice had taken on that special little ring to it that meant she was about to get either _very_ angry or _extremely_ angry, and in either case it bode nothing but ill for either of the two boys lying oh-so-innocently on her kitchen linoleum.

"How could I not?" Luxord said with a grin.

"_Good_. So if you wanna have sex? Do it outside. In the wild. You'll feel right at home," she assured the two of them. Curiously enough, she directed her final, parting stare more at Xigbar than she did her own brother, and as she turned to go it was all Xigbar could do to keep from whining some standard pathetic nonsense to Luxord—still on top of him—which usually went something like: _Your sister hates me, why does she hate me, I don't understand what I ever did to her, I even made you guys gingerbread cookies, like, five years ago, and you don't think she knows about that time I saw her naked, do you, because that could be it, I guess, but I wouldn't think she'd hold a grudge so long, but other than that, I can't really figure out why she'd hate me so much…_

Of course, it was with no small degree of bitterness that Xigbar realized he couldn't simply tell Luxord anything anymore. Now that Luxord was gay (Or had he been so this whole time…?) Xigbar was going to have to censor all sorts of things before he simply spilled his mind to the guy.

No more talks about wanting to bone so-and-so.

No more discussions about the pros and cons of boobs.

No more life-defining questions, such as the point of men's nipples.

It would all have to be carefully considered and processed before it was said, and Xigbar knew that was going to take up a significantly larger portion of time and effort that he was willing to spend on… well, just about anything.

"Well," Luxord said.

"…Dude. She knows that you're…?"

"She's Larxene." Luxord shrugged. Because he was still lying on top of Xigbar and his shoulders were up against his own shoulders, the movement sort of made Xigbar shrug, too. "She knows everything she wants to and not much else," Luxord explained. And then, with some hesitation, he asked Xigbar, "If I get off you, will you run out?"

And then, with twice the amount of hesitation that Luxord himself had just displayed, Xigbar licked his lips and lied again, which was beginning to become a nasty habit for him. "No," he said.

"Fine." Luxord promptly got up and Xigbar promptly launched himself to his feet and would've slammed through the glass had it not been for Luxord's frame suddenly getting in his way like it did. Guilty and stupid, Xigbar stopped mid-lunge and hung his arms at his sides, the perfect picture of defeat.

"**Xig**bar."

"I'm _sorry_! What the hell do you want me to do?!"

"Well, this wasn't really the reaction I was shooting for, to be brutally honest with you."

"What _were_ you shooting for?"

"…Open arms would be nice."

A sudden image of flowers, hearts, and man-on-man hugs sprung into Xigbar's mind and he involuntarily scrunched up his nose, completely oblivious to the hurt that flickered across Luxord's face as he did so.

"You're kidding, right? Dude. You can't be gay. You had sex," Xigbar said. And gay guys don't have straight sex. It doesn't take a real brain to figure that one, right?

"Yes. I did," Luxord confessed. And then said: "I was bored."

"You were **bored**? So you decided to just _off_ your virginity on _Busty_?!"

And then, from the top of the stairs in a near screeching, female voice: "I can **hear** every **word** you're **saying**! _Shut up_!"

"Look, I wanted to go out with Tifa, so I did. I wanted to have sex, so I did. And then I realized I wanted to be with… men. So I was. I mean, I am. I mean." Luxord scratched the back of his neck, fixated his eyes on a single merry-printed lemon on the wall and swallowed hard. "…I'm trying," he said.

"Well how do you know you won't change your mind again?" asked Xigbar.

"Because it's not a _matter_ of changing your mind, Xiggy. It's just a matter of growing up and figuring out what the hell you want out of life and there's nothing _wrong_ with that. Don't make it seem like there is just because you haven't done it yet."

This gave Xigbar several conflicting thoughts, but the two most important were these: first, that Luxord was obviously making a jab at Xigbar on some level, but that level made absolutely no sense to Xigbar in the slightest, and second, that Luxord hadn't called Xigbar 'Xiggy' since… well, since Xigbar could even remember. Or if he _had_ called him Xiggy, it had definitely never sounded like that before. Never stressed. Never pleaded. Simply said and nothing more.

So, confused as ever, Xigbar didn't take the blow of Luxord's words, nor did he take to the familiar, needing sound of his nickname said like that. Instead, he just squared his shoulders, straightened his spine and raised his eyebrow. "…What's that mean?"

Luxord sighed and sat down at the kitchen table. He could've passed as being five years older than he was at that moment, because with his head bent downwards like it was and with his long, teenage-boy hands embedded in his hair like they were, he just looked troubled and mature beyond reason. Cutting the angst, Luxord looked up, forced a very broad and very bitter grin, and asked a very simple question in the most straightforward way he could.

"What makes you _happy_, Xig?"

And the truth of the matter was that a lot of things made Xigbar happy. Sleep made Xigbar happy. Surfing made Xigbar happy. Food also made Xigbar happy. But he was under the distinct impression that these weren't the lifestyle-defining forms of happiness that Luxord was getting at. And when it came down to _that_, Xigbar really didn't have an appropriate answer for him. So he just sat there, looking at Luxord while Luxord looked back at him. And though neither of them openly stated it right then, both of them were becoming increasingly aware of the fact that Xigbar was an utter failure at understanding anything about himself.

What few things he did have to say in his defense? He didn't dare say them. Because the things that made him happy were simple things. Digging through metal heaps with Luxord. Lying in the backyard at night with Luxord. Driving in the car with Luxord. Eating donuts with Luxord. The list was painfully long and the more Xigbar tried to downsize it, the larger it grew. And because he wasn't about to go rattling this list off to Luxord until he could think of less… Luxord-related things… he just settled for keeping his mouth shut and feeling like a general idiot.

Finally, when it was all Luxord could do not to embed his fist in Xigbar's skull, he just sighed. "Look," he told Xigbar. "I'm not keeping you here. If you want to leave, you can. If you want me to explain things, I can. Just… tell me what you want."

"I."

"Yeah?"

"Uh."

In the corner of Luxord's mouth, just barely visible to the human eye, was a very small triangle—probably a distant relative of the Bermuda Triangle, if not the very same. Now, the first question that should pop into your head should be something along the lines of, _Why should this triangle be present on Luxord's face to begin with?_ After that, you might also—if you were somehow telepathically connected with our hapless heroes and his momentary thoughts and concerns—wonder why that triangle should have left Xigbar feeling pulled in by some gravitational force that only he seemed susceptible to. It was like a black hole effect—some terrific error in time and space—plain and welcoming on Luxord's mouth.

It should come as no real surprise to you that Xigbar _let_ that spot, that triangle, pull him in. Nor should it come as any surprise to you that Xigbar wondered what it would _feel_ like to be entirely pulled in—would he be sucked under completely, never to see the light of day again, or would he live to tell about it?

A still better question: would he even _want_ to tell about it?

And yet, it should also come as no sad surprise to you that Xigbar mustered the will to pull away. It wasn't out of disgust or fear or any of the things you might be thinking. It was out of sheer hesitancy—nothing more and certainly nothing less. In that position, Xigbar could've either dove into the mystery tucked in the corner of Luxord's mouth, or he could have backed down and retreated. Which is precisely what he did. It was not so much a fifty-fifty chance so much as it was a simple matter of Xigbar taking the path of least resistance.

The cold, hard, truth of the matter that you're probably entitled to know is this: Xigbar didn't _really_ see anything magical in Luxord's mouth. It was all just some subconscious fabrication on his part, and the only thing that might have spurred it on lay in the fact that Luxord had run out of shaving cream that morning and, having been rather desperate at the time and unable to locate Marluxia's shaving cream anywhere he looked, had resorted to borrowing his sister's Tangerine Dream Shave Cream, which had not only worked wonders on his complexion but had also left a fine, fruity scent behind. And it was that scent, most likely, that Xigbar had picked up on and found so appealing. So it was that very _same_ scent, mingled with his own thoughts and feelings, that had formed the magical—and need I remind you once more—_nonexistent_ triangle of Luxord's mouth.

Of course, it's neither here nor there, when you think about it, for Xigbar backed off anyway. But all the same, I'm sure it's an important, relevant piece of information, and should you keep it in mind it might just come in handy somewhere on down the darkened road we trudge along here.

"I… I'm gonna go home for a while. And think about some stuff. Can you explain later?" he asked.

And though there were any number of things that Luxord could've thrown at the feet of Xigbar to make him stay, he thought better of it. He just sat silent a moment and then nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Just let me know when."

x x x

Larxene had asked Marluxia to go buy her a box of tampons.

Marluxia had then told Luxord to go buy his sister a box of tampons.

Luxord had been tempted to tell Marluxia to go screw off and die a slow and painful death somewhere out of sight and out of mind, but right before he said it, he realized that that would probably be a serious misdirection of anger. After all, Marluxia had never really wronged Luxord—he never really interacted much with Luxord at all, come to think of it. But he did a fine job of keeping Larxene's attention away from her little brother so he could do as he very well pleased. It was only a matter of time, Luxord figured, before he would have to pay the toll in order to continue to live a life relatively unhindered by his somewhat psychotic sibling. Running one embarrassing errand was just part of this figurative toll.

So he'd gone to the pharmacy, realizing he was glad to be out of the house as soon as he got behind the wheel. He rolled the windows down even though it was freezing cold outside, and sang along at random intervals to a Bon Jovi song that wasn't actually playing. Picking up his shopping basket, he decided to do what he could remember his mother doing on the rare occasions she'd taken him grocery shopping with her when he was much younger. With Luxord in the child seat, deemed in charge of the grocery list, the two of them would go looping through each and every aisle, one right after another, until they must have covered every square inch of the store. Even if they didn't need anything—cleaning supplies for a clean house, pet supplies for a nonexistent pet—they would still pass by the aisle and his mother would sometimes offer random, senseless commentary on whatever she felt like.

"_What a weird shape those things have. That much, just for that? Since when is everything so expensive? Who would buy that? Ugh, I can't stand the cheap store-brand junk. Your father always gets that crap. Who uses any of this? Someone better clean that up before someone gets hurt…" And so on._

But whom should he run into on that one day, strolling on down the cereal aisle on his grand adventure? You have but a single guess, which you'll probably get wrong.

"…Axel?"

"Heyyy. Luxord. How's it, uh. Rollin'?" Axel shot the other boy a grin like he'd been waiting all day for him there, like they'd planned this meeting weeks in advance. In truth, he was really just swinging by the store to pick up more Peanut Butter Captain Crunch. But, having gotten sidetracked by the Cocoa Puffs and thrown into the pit of indecision between one product and another, he figured Luxord could prove to be a handy escape rope. He grabbed for the middle ground—Reese's Puffs, the best of both worlds in there—and tagged alongside Luxord, who shrugged, sighed, and managed to smile all at the same time. Such a feat made Axel remember why he actually kind of respected Luxord in some bizarre manner.

"It's… rolling," Luxord confessed. "How's Roxas?"

"Oh ye-ah, he's _great_. I mean. **Really** great and all, he… Well. To be brutally honest and soul-bearing, I haven't talked to him since that fucked up party in the Black Lagoon." 'The Black Lagoon' being Roxas' home, Luxord assumed. Talking with Axel was often like talking with a GPS system. You could repeat yourself fifty times over and the damn thing would still never know where you were coming from or where you were going, and the damn thing could repeat _itself_ fifty times over and you would still end up getting it wrong and landing in a ditch somewhere.

"Didn't think so."

"You seen him?"

"Once or twice."

"How'd he… look?"

"Confused, if you really want to know." As they meandered along through row after row of fine grocery goodness, they eventually came to the dreaded feminine hygiene aisle. Luxord grabbed the nearest, most expensive box of tampons he managed to set his eyes on in the span of twenty seconds. Without a second thought he tossed them in the shopping basket he carried, trying not to make a face as he did so. Then he just sighed, looked back towards Axel, and told him, "You should ask Xigbar. He knows him better. I just saw him from the car."

"Uhh… Xig's not big in the advice department, man. I mean. He couldn't advise a dog as to how to take a dump in the backyard, let alone give anyone _romantic_ advice."

"Trust me. I know."

As if that wasn't a heads-up enough as to something being wrong with the boy, Luxord then sighed and stared off into space, somewhere between the two columns of Pearl and Playtex. Axel cleared his throat in what would have probably been a polite manner, had there not been some crud stuck in there that just left him hacking rather stupidly. Trying again, Axel swallowed, asked: "Hey, you alright?"

"As ever…"

"You should try these. Always cheer me up," he said, handing Luxord what appeared to be a box of cookies. It _was_, in fact, a box of cookies—not just any cookies, but pink and white frosted animal crackers with rainbow sprinkles. The shopping basket in Axel's hand was full of them, aside from the newly added Reese's Puffs. Along with one single, solitary carton of two-percent, low fat milk. Catching sight of the quizzical look Lux shot in the way of his basket, Axel spoke up in his defense before abruptly changing the topic. "Obviously they're effective, right? Oh, and hey, man. You ever read _Vanity Fair_?"

"The magazine?"

"Nah, nah. The book."

"…I think that's what you'd call a chick book. …Like a chick flick, but. In very long, drawn out, novel form," Luxord said.

"Damn. That's what I thought…" Axel sighed and followed along beside Luxord, the two of them turning and strolling down the feminine hygiene aisle. Meanwhile, Axel talked on. "I gotta read it over break. Guess I'll be hitting up trusty ol' Sparknotes, huh?"

"You could do that. Or you could actually, you know. Skim through it, perhaps. Or, hey, you could even _read_ the thing if you wanted to be _really_ daring."

Like he might have been considering it, Axel puckered his lips and furrowed his brow, and after much contemplation asked, "How long is it?"

"Upwards of eight-hundred pages or so. Depends on the print."

"_Je_sus! You've gotta be _shitting_ me!"

"No. No, I'm not shitting you."

"It's just a get-together deal, right?" Axel asked him. "The chick wins the guy in the end? Why does that take eight hundred _pages_? Dear _God_. If it's another one of those eighteenth century '_I'm a woman who needs a husband or I'll amount to nothing in life_' tales from hell, I **swear**. Man oh _man_, you'd think chicks would have something better to write about."

"Actually, _Vanity Fair_ wasn't written by a chick," Luxord told him, much to Axel's apparent dismay. "Besides. People like reading love stories. Especially ones where the main characters are so downright awful that they end up deserving each and every obstacle that comes between them and their beloved, happily wedded ending."

"…Oh. Well. Now that you mention it."

"And what's more is that it makes single idiots like you and me feel better about ourselves for not getting involved in the whole ridiculous business of love to begin with. Obviously, if we were to get involved, it would just lead to eight-hundred pages of stress and grief on who knows how many sides."

Oh the bitter, bitter irony Luxord was experiencing at that particular moment in time.

"Damn straight, man. Eight-hundred stinkin' pages worth." Axel and Luxord stood there awkwardly for a minute, each thinking through their history of love—or the lack thereof—and wondering if it would make for a story of any sort. Certainly not an eight hundred page one, they both decided. And yet… Axel shrugged, sighed, then said, "Though if we're being totally honest and clean with each other—and I'm not sayin' we _are_ or anything—I gotta say that I'd rather be sloughing it through those eight-hundred pages of angst-ridden love rather than spending it as the loser guy all alone in the corner with not a page to his name."

"…Do you think this is a deep conversation we're having?" Luxord asked.

"Oh, it's definitely got the potential, that's for sure," said Axel.

"Hm."

A passing woman slowed her shopping cart just ever so slightly and studied the two boys lost in thought, situated between the tampons and pads like natural bystanders in a perfectly innocent situation. She didn't really want to ask them what on earth they were up to, especially with all the news and media reporting this, that, and the other about gender-bending and organ-swapping and male pregnancies galore. Musing over the corrupt nature of today's youth, she decided that it was towards her better judgment to just cast the both of them a dirty glance and frequent the hygiene aisle _after_ she'd picked up her two pounds of roast beef.

So whether this woman's pointless scowl had any effect on Luxord or Axel—it remains a mystery. Regardless, they parted ways minutes later, outside the store—Axel headed one way and Luxord headed his own. If either one of them had actually been wise enough or smart enough to openly ask the other for advice, they probably could've saved themselves a fair amount of strife and struggle in the end. But, as is usually the case with young, self-obsessed males, they didn't ask for help, they didn't ask for advice, and they unknowingly walked headlong into an ugly future that lay seemingly of drama and angst that would only worsen before what they hoped would be a happy, fruitful ending.

For Luxord, the drama and angst began as soon as he set foot back in his house.

"Luxord, what in the hell are these?"

Luxord glanced from the box of tampons clenched in his sister's hand back towards her face. He blinked. He was reasonably certain he knew what they were. "…Tampons?" he said.

"Thanks. I never would've guessed." Larxene rolled her eyes dramatically and shoved the box closer to Luxord's face like the boy had somehow become seeing-impaired overnight. "They're _scented_, Little Boy Wonder," she drawled, spitting out the word 'scented' like it was poison that had already done her in.

"Okay?"

"So why would I want _scented_ tampons? Why would I need my snatch to smell like roses or something?"

"Uh."

"Holy _God_, Lux. You've got to be _kidding_ me with this. Ugh, get a whiff of this junk! Those are so not going in my vag."

"We're not having this conversation."

"You're getting me another box."

"I'm not."

"You are. These are going to make me puke."

"I don't **care**! Maybe if you blow **chunks** on them, they won't smell so delightful anymore and you can be happy!"

Luxord almost had to gape at himself—if that was even physically possible—because he hadn't been aware he'd turned into a hormonal girl just from standing in that stupid hormonal girl aisle at the store. He'd never thought it possible before. But there he was, taking part in the stupidest argument he'd ever been a part of. _Ever_. And he'd been part of some pretty stupid arguments in his lifetime.

"Well maybe if I shove them down your **throat**, you'll die a slow and painful death and then I can be even happier!" Larxene was hollering.

"Well _maybe_ I'll do you a damn favor and do it my_self_, because choking to death on your flower scented tampons would be _infinitely_ better than having to live with you constantly _bitching_ at me!"

_Good GOD, what is WRONG with me?!_ Luxord thought in sheer panic. In some effort to make a getaway before he lost what little was left of his sanity, Luxord all but sprinted for the basement door. He didn't want to deal with what may very well be the greatest letdown of his young, pathetic life on top of having to deal with his sister's menstrual-induced insanity. But halfway down the stairs, he was stopped by her voice, which no longer had that screeching, nutty quirk to it. Instead it was cold and blank and almost sinister, if Luxord had ever been man enough to pair such a word with his sister, of all people.

"You know she killed herself because you couldn't be bothered to go see her yesterday," Larxene said from the top of the stairs.

Without turning around—because if he did, he figured he'd probably just start yowling again—Luxord just addressed the ceiling. "You don't know that," he said.

"So tell me, genius. Why'd she do it?"

_Why __**did**__ she? I don't know. Or… maybe I do. What does it matter anyway? She's dead, we're alive, the world moves on. That's the sort of attitude Xigbar would probably take to it anyway. The world moves on. _

"I don't know, alright? But it's not my fault," he said. "And it's not my fault I didn't know about your passionate hatred for scented tampons."

"And it's not your fault you're a flaming queer, either, I suppose."

"No, it's not."

"She'd be disappointed in you."

"She'd be another member of an ever-growing club, wouldn't she?"

And then, for whatever strange, unknown reason, a complete and total miracle happened. At least, a complete and total miracle as far as Luxord was concerned. In all likelihood, it was probably just the way reality swung, but either way, it had Marluxia entering in upon the scene, standing there awkwardly for a second or so, and then clearing his throat from where he stood in the kitchen.

"Hey. I'll go," he said.

Larxene turned, blinked, and stared at him. "Huh?"

"I'll go get another box," he went. "You told me to do it anyway. So I'll go."

If she hesitated at all, it was probably only because Luxord had completely fallen for the bait earlier and dragged himself head over heels into their petty little argument. But, giving way to common sense, Larxene just shrugged. She said, "Whatever. _Some_one needs to get me _some_thing before I start oooozing everywhere like a stuck pig," and simply left it at that, stalking off towards the stairs and, most likely, her bedroom.

If Luxord was feeling at all like being grateful, he would've been. In fact, there was a particular two-second span of time in which he honestly felt like walking right back up those stairs and telling everything to Marluxia—every damn little thing. Because Marluxia was practically a stranger to him, it seemed like a safe option. Telling things to strangers always seemed like a safe option, though it generally went against everything ever taught to anyone in grade school. But Luxord just passed those two seconds on the same step, motionless and angry and wondering why the hell holidays had to be so rotten. Then he thundered down the remaining steps and sat on the couch, where the TV was still set on the Discovery Channel and where he remained for the rest of the day, watching some program about rehabilitating orphaned monkeys with the outside world.

x x x

"Xigbar? Everything okay?"

This was it. He'd walked all the way downstairs just to ask his mother for advice. Just to tell her all the craziness that had suddenly erupted into his life. Just to let her know that her precious little Luxord was not as perfect and flawless as she'd always made him out to be. And yet she was wearing that god-awful floral apron that Kurt had bought her for Christmas. Of all the degrading gifts to give a woman.

Xigbar stared blankly at his mother for a while. She wasn't even really looking at him anymore. She was humming away and rolling snicker doodles in cinnamon-sugar before plopping their perfectly spherical forms on a cookie sheet.

He swallowed hard, told himself once more for good measure: _THIS IS IT_, and took the plunge for all it was worth.

"Mom?" he went.

"Yes sweetie?" she cooed.

And maybe it was the cooing or maybe it was the distraction of the fatty dough in the bowl and on the sheet, and maybe it was the plain truth that Xigbar had nothing he could say to his mother without being forced to feel that she was, once again, his mother. Quite simply, she could never play that role again, for she was more Kurt's wife than she would ever be Xigbar's mother.

"…When are those cookies gonna be done?" was all he asked, and even when his mind tacked on an artful, _Shit, that wasn't what I meant to say,_ he did nothing to openly voice it.

"Probably in fifteen minutes or so," his mother was telling him all the while, clearly oblivious to her son's pathetic little internal struggle. "How was your appointment this morning with Dr…?"

"…Uh. I don't remember his last name."

"He gave you his first name?" she asked him, and up until that moment, Xigbar hadn't thought it strange at all that he only knew the first name of his surgeon-to-be, and not his last name. It was, however, the sort of thing most people could shrug off. Especially people like Xigbar.

He shrugged. "Said on his nametag. Vexen." He told his mother. Then he let out a low whistle that melted into a hum that melted into a whisper, all because she didn't even look up from the bowl in front of her at the noise in the first place. "Weeeird name," he said. "Weeeird guy. I dunno."

"Well, I'm sure you'll feel better about the whole process in no time at all. Once you get used to the idea and once it's all over with, I bet you'll be glad you did it," she assured him.

And then, like an afterthought tossed over his shoulder as he backed out the way he'd come, making his retreat slow and steady and somewhat sad: "…Luxord says I shouldn't."

At his name she did manage to take the courtesy of a pause and a smile. She even looked up, for all of a split second, at her son, so he managed to get just a wisp of that smile before it was turned back towards the bowl before her. "Luxord's just sweet, isn't he?" she went. And that was the closest Xigbar ever got to spilling the day's events right then and there. But, just as before, he couldn't bring himself to do it, and was only annoyed and depressed by the entire situation.

If a kid can't talk to his mother, and if a kid can't talk to his father, and if a kid can't talk to his best friend, whom can he talk to?

And his mother dared to say that such a deserter of a boy was **sweet**.

"Ye-ah, right," Xigbar heard himself say. And obviously, his mother heard, too. Even though she didn't bother to look up towards him again, she did go to all the trouble of lifting a single, fine, questioning eyebrow of her own.

"Xigbar?"

"Mom, I—"

"Did you want to lick the bowl?"

"…Nah, I'm cool. Kurt can do it."

"If you say so."

Again, it's asked: _If a kid can't talk to his mother, and if a kid can't talk to his father, and if a kid can't talk to his best friend, whom can he talk to?_

The answer? His deformed cat.

Virtue took in every last word Xigbar uttered in the way that true friends should. He was quiet, he made eye contact, and he pretended it all made perfectly sense to him. So by the time the story was told and Xigbar was left with nothing more to do than reflect on the entire ordeal and get down to the nitty-gritty business of figuring his own self out, it was very easy to feign sleepiness. And the cat—still very much like a good friend—know that this sleepiness was utter bullshit, but said nothing against it. He just curled up on Xigbar's stomach until the fake exhaustion became real and the both of them fell asleep.

(x) (x) (x)

WHOO. Sorry for the stupidly long wait between updates. Summer is just too fun to pass up, especially when it isn't quite yet unbearably hot outside. Oh! And fellow KH fic writer (and my darling buddy-roo) Vash's Girl and I will be at Otakon this year, cosplaying as charming ladies Tifa and Cissnei from Crisis Core. Give us a kick if you see us! (Or something.)


	8. Free With Every Membership

How To Do Nothing At All

'Free With Every Membership'

Winter never seemed to go away. Three, four days dragged by, and the sky still retained that unforgiving gray that it'd worn since break started. Beneath the rotten spread of it all—clouds and flakes and cold and all—Axel slumped on down the streets, not because he was tired and certainly not because he was injured. He slumped, simply, because that was how he walked when it was cold outside. Every person has a different walk for every different kind of weather. Or have you never noticed?

Axel's slump put his back into a curl, his spine pressed right up against his t-shirt, pressed right up against his sweatshirt, pressed right up against his leather jacket—which did very little to keep him warm but did quite a lot to make him look almost badass. He'd taken a twenty-minute bus ride to get to the neighborhood he was in and had been walking for almost another ten in order to get where he was right at that moment. And where he was right at that very moment—though I'm certain you saw this coming from miles away—was right in front of Roxas' house. It'd taken seventeen phone calls to Xigbar and two frustrated voicemails in order to find out what day the kid was coming back. Axel hadn't even known he'd left in the first place.

So when Roxas did get around to opening the door—and this took another three minutes of standing out in the bitter chill of the world—Axel tried to be all grins and smiles and giggles and laughs, and he certainly tried to let on that he wasn't the slightest, least little bit pissed off that his best friend had up and left for a week with no word, no notice, and not the slightest care towards Axel's well-being.

"Roxas!" he said, setting eyes on the short blonde kid wearing plaid pajamas in the doorway. He wasn't wearing anything on his feet, however, and Axel couldn't help but grin moronically watching as Roxas' toes curled up and hid under the hem of his pants, away from the cold.

"Hey, Axel," Roxas said.

"How were the Bahamas?" asked Axel.

"I didn't go to the Bahamas."

"The Keys?"

"Uhh… Try again?"

"The frickin' Caribbean? I don't know, where the hell does your rich mom take you?"

"She's not my mom. And she took me to Alaska."

Wrinkling his nose in disgust, Axel shifted from foot to foot, wondering when on earth Roxas would understand that it was very cold and Axel was very unhappy being in that very cold. "…Who the hell goes to Alaska for a winter getaway?" he prattled on, teeth chattering the whole while. He even let a silence fall between the two of them, just so Roxas could take in and process the whole chattering factor. Nothing plays up the sympathy card like chattering, let me tell you.

But Roxas remained perfectly oblivious and it almost looked like he was lost in thought, only now thinking to ask himself why indeed he'd been hauled up to _Alaska_, of all places, in the dead of winter. So he shrugged his usual shrug, rolled his eyes a little and simply told Axel, "I don't really know, but it's pretty nice outside here compared to Alaska."

_Well, maybe that explains why he's not letting me inside. Except my lips are blue. Blue lips, Roxas, are you blind or just feeling even slower than normal today? _"You're a sad case," was all Axel said, even though he could've launched onto one of the million tangents zooming around in his mind. Suddenly, by Roxas' feet, there appeared the familiar hairball in all her glory, the cold not seeming to faze her in the least, either. Axel was beginning to wonder if it was a personal problem he had. "How ya doin', Thursday?" he went.

"Mrrrow," responded the cat, which remained ever the perfect host.

"I think he's got post-traumatic stress disorder from the kennel. He's going bald." The way Roxas said it, he might just as well have been talking about an upcoming golf game he didn't really give a shit about. And yet even though balding cats were definitely not what he'd gone there to talk about, Axel couldn't resist the opportunity to correct the kid.

"She," he said.

Roxas screwed up his brow, studied Axel very hard and said again, "_He_." And then he promptly blinked, did a classic double take at his cat, and corrected himself that time. "No, wait, she. You're right. My bad."

The silence came back, this time uninvited and imposing more than anything. Axel was absolutely miserable, but the more miserable he tried to look, the more miserable he felt. So rather than worsening an already rotten scenario, he decided to just skip a few steps and cut to the chase as best he could, though the more he started talking, the more he started wondering if this was even a chase worth being _in_. "Sooo," he went, "despite what your twisted, northern-exposed, biological heat-index might read, it's pretty cold out here. Mind if I come in?"

"I guess not."

It was all Axel could do to keep from barreling headlong through the kid to get out of the doorway and into the perpetual warmth that only Roxas' energy bill could ever provide. He didn't wait for Roxas to take his coat and he didn't have to be told much of anything. He took the thing off, brushed as much of the snow off and onto the front mat as he could, and then hung it up himself. His nostrils filled with the smell of wet—and probably damaged—leather, it only then dawned on him that wearing that particular coat out into a snowfall was, perhaps, not the brightest move he'd ever made. He'd just been so preoccupied with dressing to impress, he hadn't even noticed. And now that he was down to his jeans and a ratty Oxford sweatshirt that he'd found in the depths of some thrift shop bin, he felt he'd completely and utterly face-planted, despite all his good intentions.

Roxas didn't seem to mind, though. He shrugged off Oxford Boy just like he shrugged everything off, and his voice was nothing but indifferent when he offered, "Cocoa?"

"Sweet." Which it literally was. Following Roxas into the kitchen, Axel paid no mind to the lavish decoration and care put into the house around him. Unlike Xigbar, he was there too often to care anymore, and also unlike Xigbar, he actually had a very small, very hidden week spot for Roxas' mother. She was completely crazy in a completely rich fashion, and if you were anyone, you knew well that so long as you were completely rich about anything, that made it perfectly acceptable. Easing on into a stool set up at the kitchen island counter, Axel rested his chin in his hands. "Alright, alright," he said. "So more on Alaska, man. Gimme the dirty, sordid details of your thoroughly miserable, wealthy life."

"We left, we froze, we returned. That's… really about it," Roxas told him. But Axel had picked up on that slight skip in his speech and he took no shame in saying so.

"…There was hesitation there."

"No, actually there wasn't," Roxas lied. From where he sat, Axel could see just the very tips of Roxas' ears turn pink. The kid was a terrible liar. His ears were a dead give away on anything.

"Nah, nah, nah. I totally picked up on it," Axel insisted. Roxas had no reply to this, either pretending he didn't hear or pretending he didn't care, going about his business either way with grabbing mugs and putting a saucepan on the stovetop. Axel, meanwhile, drummed his fingers along the granite countertop, at the same time drumming up some speech in the confines of his mouth before spitting it out into the open. "There was some holding-back there, man," he said slyly. "What is it you're not telling me? _Me_, right? Your best bud! You're supposed to tell me every goddamn, uninteresting thing that freakin' _happens_ to you. It's in the _contract_."

Roxas' head poked up behind the other side of the counter, where he was crouched down rummaging for something or other. His brows were furrowed and he was giving Axel this adorable, clueless look before getting up and moving back over to the stove, adding what appeared to be thick, raw chunks of chocolate to the milk he had heating on the stove already. "I don't really remember there ever _being_ a contract," he mumbled.

"It's an ever-evolving process. You gotta keep up. Goddamn slacker. That's not the point. What happened in Alaska?"

"I got… drunk."

Axel blinked, caught off-guard by the blandness of the truth. He'd been hoping for something way juicier, truth be told, and even though Roxas seemed embarrassed to admit it, Axel thought nothing of it. Nothing of it but the letdown.

He sighed. "O-kaaay. So that's pretty much me and my mom every Saturday night. Man oh man, Roxas. Way to be daring."

Ignoring the insult, however slight, Roxas let out a rather rude snort of laughter. "You get drunk with your _mom_?" he asked.

"_Hell_ yeah. No one knows how to chill like my mom. No lies there. Don't get jealous, now, don't get jealous," Axel said, grinning all the while. "Just elaborate on your drunken stupor." He then paused, sniffed the air, then added: "And the chocolate's burning. What the hell is that? Don't you just have the powdery stuff?"

"No, I don't have cocaine, Axel."

"Ha. Ha. Ha. For real." Axel hopped up from his perch, coming to stand right behind Roxas in a few quick, quiet strides. He peered over the smaller boy's shoulder, watching Roxas stir away at the thick, sweet concoction that was steaming away on the stove. And even though it might have been a piece of heaven on earth in Roxas' saucepan, Axel still would've poked fun at it. Which he proceeded to do. "You said cocoa, not… liquid death."

"This is cocoa. It's just… kind of old school. Besides, those powdered drinks probably give people cancer."

"Oh yeah, and chocolate's got all-natural, healthy goodness just _beamin'_ right out its ass. Gimme a break. Cocoa's not meant to be a health food, it's meant to be a hormone-zinging pleasure trip."

Axel was smug for a few seconds, about to launch into a whole speech on the benefits of aphrodisiacs, but Roxas' silence was apparently contagious because Axel suddenly shut up, aware of just how weird he'd made the entire situation. Suddenly his proximity to Roxas was all too obvious and the scant few inches' distance between them was just begging to be bridged. Axel cleared his throat and backed away, something he didn't think he'd have the power in himself to do. He made himself as still as he could, thinking it'd help calm him down and keep his voice from cracking, which he was suddenly terrified would happen. So he cleared his throat once more for good measure before up and stating the obvious.

"That just made it awkward, didn't it?" he asked.

"Um, yeah. A little," Roxas said, mumbling again.

Taking both hands and weaving them deep into the mess of his own hair, Axel shook his head wildly back and forth, wondering if it was possible to shake both stupidity and misplaced sexual thoughts out of his head before it was too late. It was looking grim, but seemed worth the effort, up until he stopped shaking his head, but couldn't seem to keep the room around him from spinning onwards. So he just closed his eyes. Better than seeing Roxas embarrassed and weird. Better than seeing his own moronic face reflected back at him from the sheen of the microwave.

"Look, forget I said it. You were telling me about your drunken, Alaskan adventures. What'd you do, hook up with a polar bear?" Axel tried to make a joke out of it and it fell painfully flat. Somehow, he'd expected that.

"Not quite." And somehow he'd expected that, too, but it still came like a punch to the gut when Roxas went and said it in that _I'm-going-to-avoid-this-topic-now_ kind of tone.

"…Not **quite**? Jesus, Roxas. What the hell's that supposed to get me thinking? _Penguins_?" As if polar bears hadn't already been bad enough, the idea of Roxas getting freaky with penguins just about made Axel throw up a little in his mouth.

"That's the wrong end of the globe," Roxas said, as though geographical know-how would really be enough to save his ass so late in the game.

"_You're_ the wrong end of the globe!" Axel retorted, as though fifth-grade comebacks would really be enough to help him regain what little dignity he might ever have possessed upon entering the damn room in the first place.

"That didn't—"

"_Christ_, okay. So you didn't hook up with polar bears. Not really. But you were drunk and there was... hook… uppage?"

And though Roxas was sorely tempted to get on Axel's case about using not-words, he kept his mouth shut and reminded his saintly self that the best way to play this kind of game was not to play it all. It was something like a chastity belt. Only it was on his mouth. "I don't wanna talk about it, okay?" A few seconds later and he'd gone and devised a clever distraction via lovely, enticing mug of steamy cocoa thrust into Axel's hands. "Here," he said, and plopped down on the ground, where he figured Axel wouldn't follow.

Naturally, Roxas was dead wrong about this and a minute later, both boys were seated on the kitchen floor, a roomful of perfectly serviceable chairs and stools around them. Axel opened his mouth to try and weasel an actual answer from his miniature friend, but Roxas shot him down with another well placed (if repetitive) _I don't want to talk about it_. Axel gave it two more tries, both resulting in the same response, before he attended to his cocoa with a grumpy face that tried its hardest not to look the least bit satisfied when it took a sip of whatever glorious substance it was Roxas had gone and put in that mug—it definitely wasn't your run-of-the-mill cocoa. But no matter his efforts, Axel's voice still came out far softer than it should have when he tried to make a stand for himself.

"Look, Roxas. The fact that you don't wanna talk about it? You think that means anything to me? Think again, would ya? Like I care what you want by this point in the game. I **do** wanna talk about it. So we're gonna fuckin' talk about it." He blinked, then sighed. Even his swears weren't packing their usual punch, and they were his ever trusty fallback. It was a sad day for him—even more so because he was completely aware of it. So, surrendering to his weak, flat voice, he asked Roxas the most simple, most direct of all the questions he had swirling around his head.

"How'd you get drunk?"

"Party."

"Unsupervised?"

"It was kind of a private party."

"So… unsupervised."

Roxas looked sideways at Axel, his mouth sealed around glass and liquid chocolate, and if he hadn't had at least some small ounce of respect for the house surrounding him, he might actually have been tempted to jettison that lovely cocoa right from his mouth and into the waiting, open face of his most charming friend. As it was, he swallowed and behaved himself, though he did make a face when he answered. It wasn't like Axel to interrogate the hell out of him, and the fact that Axel somehow felt he had the right to do so now that his supposed 'feelings' were out in the open just bothered Roxas to no end.

"More like crappily supervised," Roxas told him. "I got drunk, but the '_chaperones'_ got wasted."

The mental image this was all generating for Axel was as disturbing as it was… highly amusing. All he was really getting out of this was a roomful of intoxicated rich bastards, young and old alike, and smack dab in the middle of it: a very confused Roxas being molested by a large group of girls, numbering anywhere between five and forty. Shaking his head—in part to focus, in part to get rid of the image—Axel went on. "Okay, okay," he said. "Hob-knobbing with every Jilted Jill and Donald Trump like they're your next door neighbors with some close friends in AA. So? What then?"

"Axel—"

"Don't '_Axel'_ me, that just gets all on my nerves. Tell me what happened already."

"…It's weird."

"Why's it weird?"

"You _know_ why it's weird."

"Well why'd you—" Suddenly aware that he was just below hollering volume, Axel tried to tone it down. But for every notch he took down the volume, his face just got uglier and uglier with something Roxas figured was either jealousy or resentment or—and most likely—a little bit of both. "Fuck, why'd you **do** it? " Axel asked him. He wasn't making any effort to keep his tone pleasant, obviously. "I mean. Whatever it was you **did**? Which I still don't **know** because you still haven't told me a goddamn thing, you little shi—"

"Axel, _bay_-bee!"

Roxas had never felt more grateful towards his not-mother than he did right then. At least, not as far as he could remember. Not since she bailed him out of a world of foster homes and community living. He even almost managed to smile at her as she waltzed in, heels strapped to her feet and rings glistening in the kitchen light.

Axel took it all in stride. His tone instantly flipped, suddenly happy and light and cheerful as he could get it without coming across as painfully fake.

"Moi-raaa," he said. "Roxas was just tellin' me all about Alaska."

"Oh it was just fabulous. Just _fabulous_. I'm just sorry you couldn't make it! Roxas said you were at your grandmother's and all." She swooped over towards the microwave to check her hair in its reflection, thereby completely missing Axel's jaw dropping in shock. "Isn't that just… _darling_? How was it?"

"My… grandma's?" Axel stuttered. By the time Moira turned back around to beam a brilliant smile at Axel, he'd composed himself yet again, though Roxas, still seated beside him, looked like he kind of wanted to die where he sat. And Axel, somewhere in the deep, dark depths of his sad little soul, almost felt like he would've been happy to give Roxas exactly what he wanted.

Ignoring that part of him, Axel grinned—said to Moira, "Oh. Oh yeah, it was, uh, it was a _blast_, yanno. All us kids. The dogs. The, uh… the kettle corn and… other assorted nuts and candied sweets. Just an old-fashioned Christmas, yanno. Right outta the fifties. Just the way granny likes it."

Moira blinked, her obscenely large, false eyelashes reminded both Roxas and Axel of butterfly wings. …Stuck to her eyelids with glue. She waved her hand then, leaving a trail of laughter behind her as she made for the hallway, and beyond it, the front door. "Well whatever floats your boat, darling," she called out over her shoulder. "I'm running late for a pedicure. Ta!"

Once the door slammed, neither boy said anything. Roxas was busy trying to figure out one of two things—he either needed to get an elaborate escape plan together in the next five seconds or he had to come up with a half-believable excuse as to why he'd gone and lied like had. He didn't have the time, however. Axel was obviously on the ball that day because his recovery time from shock after shock just kept getting better and better.

"…Dude, if you're going to pull that shit, could you at least try to be a little more _correct_ about it? Or at least a little more original? I haven't had grandparents for the past ten years," he said.

"That wasn't supposed to happen," Roxas whispered. "…Sorry, Axel."

"Forget about it. Like I'd go to Alaska with you anyway. In the freaking dead of winter… Nuts."

"I mean it, Axel. I'm sorry."

"Yeah, yeah, cry me a river, alright? I'm _over_ it. Bam. Just like that. Either get on with your story or drink your damn cocoa, but stop sitting there gaping like you're about to burst a tear duct all over me."

"It's okay to be pissed at me, you know."

"And secretly, I _am_. But I'm trying real, _real_ damn hard not to show it, so if you'd just get on with your epic saga, I'd probably hold out a whole lot better."

Roxas started to bite his lip, but stopped halfway there, his mouth sort of awkwardly ajar as he breathed in and out and again tried to figure out what to do. Axel wanted the whole truth and nothing but—that much was obvious. And even though the whole truth would definitely be like a kick in the balls, Roxas figured, Axel probably deserved it. …That is, he deserved to know the truth. …Not that he deserved a kick in the balls.

"It was stupid, okay?" Roxas said. "It was just… a bunch of over-privlidged rich kids who didn't know how good they had it all lying around and drinking and kind of dancing and other junk." "And some girl kind of wanted to fool around so I kind of did."

"You _kind of did_."

"I was drunk."

"We've established that one."

"You're not getting it."

"I'm missing it by a mile." Axel tried not to throw his mug across the room and start screaming bloody murder, and it was such a challenge that it just about took all the energy right out of him. So when he spoke again, he almost sounded creepily calm. "Well. Was she hot?" he asked.

"Not really."

"What was she like?"

"Um. Pale. Dark hair. Kind of a big head." Roxas' hands came up to illustrate this last point, and all he really succeeded in doing was instilling the image of a watermelon-headed woman in the pit of Axel's mind. Definitely not a pleasant thought. Especially when Axel took it one step further and envisioned Roxas macking on it.

So it really shouldn't surprise you that Axel's expression went from mild resentment to flat out disgust the more he kept talking. "And what exactly did you _do_?" he asked Roxas, going pink in the face with the strain of not shouting that last word so loud that all the world could hear it. Instead he just emphasized it enough for the whole house to hear—not that it mattered, as the whole house now just consisted of Roxas, Axel, and Thursday. There might have been some kittens somewhere—Axel wasn't sure. But Thursday certainly didn't give a crap about what Axel was hollering about—she only gave a crap about the disruption it caused her hourly nap, so the dirty look she gave the human as she skulked past was purely understandable, you see.

But as pink as Axel was, Roxas was even more so, his hands curled into balls and his face taking on the hue of watermelon guts—a color that did little to ease Axel's mood, his mind still set where it was with melon-headed women. "We're not talking about this!" Roxas practically whined, which was almost as uncharacteristic for him as the arm flailing that accompanied the statement.

"Oh, why not? Like I care."

"You _do_. That's the whole problem. Aren't you getting that yet?"

Either not caring enough to acknowledge that question or caring too _much_ to acknowledge that question, Axel pressed right on.

"What base did you hit?"

"We're **not** talking about it." Roxas all but landed flat on his face as he scrambled, as he stood, grabbing his own empty mug in one hand and reaching for Axel's with his spare. Axel, however, merely laid his palm across the rim, blocking Roxas' access to it and startling the boy enough into making eye contact. It was a contact Axel didn't intend to let break, but he couldn't stop Roxas from looking away when he did.

"I'm not finished," Axel told him sharply, quietly. "You've already done your damage. It's pretty stupid trying to hold the rest back at this point. All I have to do is get you drunk again—which I now know is doable if a bunch of rich, brainless morons pulled it off—and weasel it out of you. So just come up front and tell me."

For the several achingly long minutes that passed by in silence, it began to look increasingly doubtful that Axel was going to get anywhere with Roxas—that night or any other. Roxas was immobile in both face and body, and when he did finally get around to speaking, he made no effort to conceal every ounce of resentment that his voice held.

"You really wanna know?" he asked.

And though with that tone, Axel knew that he probably really didn't want to know what all had gone on… he still couldn't turn back by that point. So he steeled himself in whatever way he could, which wasn't much, granted, and nodded twice. "I really wanna know," he said.

"Even though this entire conversation is really warped? Even though it's—it's really screwed up how we're even talking about this in the first place after, after what happened and all?"

"Yeah. I wanna know. So… Base?"

"Third."

"**Slut**."

"I _knew_ you were going to do that."

"You didn't even know that stupid girl."

"I wanted to see what it was like."

"She could've had crabs or, or _rabies_ or something."

"I wanted to see what it was like," Roxas said again, though this time it almost sounded like a plea.

"Well you could've asked _**me**_."

An image flashed in Roxas' head—Axel doing what the girl had done—and instantly his face went even darker than it had before. His ears were practically on fire and he felt like his cheeks were about to burst with all the blood that must've been there, so he placed one palm on each side of his face, not caring that it made him look like even more of an idiot. The look was actually pretty comical, paired with those wide blue eyes like it was, and it at least did Roxas the favor of calming Axel down somewhat. Seeing Roxas make a fool of himself was delightful and rare enough to take the edge off any mood. But the lapse in anger was all to quickly replaced by a thick sort of sadness. Roxas turned away, hands still to his face, and took a few steps towards the refrigerator, briefly considering locking himself up n there until the entire mess could blow over. Instead, he just talked to the metal surface of the fridge itself.

"Why do you have to be like that, huh?" he asked quietly.

"Trust me, it sure as shit ain't by choice."

"What part of it?"

"_Every_ part of it, you dipshit. What part do you think? You think there isn't a sea of half-likeable gents out there I could get with if I really wanted? You think I'd much rather be—be stupidly devoted to some prick like you? Get real." Axel's voice had gotten softer by the second while he spoke, but it lost none of its edge. And all it ended with was Axel pinning Roxas to the wall with his eyes, though Roxas was fairly sure that if he could've used his hands for the job without shaking or just plain chickening-out, Axel probably would've. And yet for all that Roxas was so sure he understood Axel, he still misinterpreted that piercing stare.

"Stop getting mad," he said quietly.

"Oh, _blow me_. You run and hide from me in a closet under a rug, for Christ's sake—the minute I tell you anything about it. The minute I tell you the slightest damned thing that I've been shouldering for almost an entire fucking year. Then you go lie to your—I'm sorry, your _adoptive mother,_ and tell her I'm spending Christmas with my dead grandma, all just so you don't have to put up with me any longer than you absolutely have to. And then when you're home and when I finally get the chance to unfuck everything I've fucked up, you go and say you decided to randomly hook up with some fat-head girl you know nothing about and obviously don't give a shit about either." Axel either realized he was making a scene or did some minor damage to his vocal chords, but either way, his voice dropped back down to a respectable level right then. It stayed harsh and it stayed hurt in that way that tries to say '_I'm not really hurting, I'm actually pissed as hell'_, and Axel just crossed his arms and rolled his eyes and pretended like he really was just pissed as hell and nothing more.

"And all you can say now is to stop getting mad? _Man_, you really are a piece of work," he said.

Roxas sighed. He wasn't about to come out and admit that he wasn't impressed by Axel's little tantrums or bitchy moments. In fact, he found them downright annoying. It just wasn't annoying for the reasons Roxas wished. Instead, he was shockingly embarrassed, shamed, and clouded by the unmistakable feeling of guilt. And since it certainly wasn't fair that Axel's idiotic fits should've evoked such a reaction in Roxas, said fits could safely, securely be labeled as annoying.

And nothing else.

Both Roxas and Axel were such unwavering morons, it was really quite sad. The only problem is that each of them was so convinced they were in the right that they only saw their adversary as some giant, foolish, slavering wildebeest type creature that wouldn't really know common sense if you embedded it in the side of the beast's head with a baseball bat. So Roxas, unsurprisingly, did exactly the same thing as Axel did.

He crossed his arms. But instead of rolling his eyes, he glared and he pouted, and he ultimately ended up looking even more childish than Axel, though that could've possible stemmed from the fact that Axel had almost two years on him age-wise.

"You're the one who wanted to know so bad," Roxas grumbled. "I mean, you get pissed at me, but you're the one who pushed and pushed and wouldn't let it go even when I tried to make you forget about it."

"What, you think I could just leave here and spend the next few nights wondering about what you were up to and who you were doing over your winter break?" Axel asked.

"Look. We're **not** in a relationship. You don't have a right to get pissed and you're storming around my kitchen like Moira when she was going through menopause. I mean, if you could see yourself right now? …Come _on_, Axel."

"Well what about you? Huh? You're—you're… defensive and shit." Axel blinked. Between you and I, both Roxas and Axel were pretty much at fault for the entire argument. And between you and I, when Axel rubbed his arm and sighed and said, "You've got a point, huh?" he was actually lying through his teeth. As far as he could see, Roxas didn't have a point at all—in fact, Roxas didn't even have dignity anymore because he was apparently rather slutty now. But Axel was not above lying and Axel was still up to his nose in hormones, and if lying would get him any closer to Roxas, then he was going to lie until his last gasping breath in Roxas' kitchen.

But Roxas, naturally, didn't understand any of this and he proceeded to fall face-first into Axel's devious little trap. "Yeah, I _do_ have a point," he said.

"But so do I. You _were_ kind of a whore." For some reason, Axel perked up a bit as he said the last word. He'd obviously been waiting to say it all night.

"Well, maybe. Kind of." Roxas pretended to think it over for a few seconds, running his thumb along the handle of his mug while he did so. All he was really doing was trying to dig up something to use against Axel in return, but as far as Axel could tell, Roxas was guilt tripping just like he'd wanted him to. And then Roxas turned to look at him with big, pitiful eyes and said: "You _used_ Kairi?"

Axel stared, quite openly, and wondered what the hell Kairi had to do with anything right then. Trying not to lose his cool, he coughed and rubbed his arm again, looking away from Roxas while he did so. "Ye-ahhh, that was kinda lame, huh?" he went.

"You only broke her heart. No big deal or anything."

"She's, what, sixteen or something? Come on. Heart's are breaking and mending at rapid-fire speeds when kids are sixteen. She'll pull through. She's fuckin' _exceptional_ anyway. Like I would've pulled her into my brilliant scheme if she wasn't."

The way Axel said 'exceptional' made it truly seem like Axel thought Kairi really was exceptional. And he did. So did Roxas. And so once they'd discovered some common ground between them, it was almost like a swift and easy breeze blowing out an angry sort of candle. The tension of the past fifteen minutes or so was gone, leaving both Roxas and Axel as they always had been. Two weird boys, each awkward in their own way, with everything to say to one another and with set plans by which they'd go about saying it.

"Actually, your scheme was pretty stupid. And it didn't work at all," Roxas said. "…And if you like Kairi so much, why'd you have to go and do it?"

"'Cause. It made sense at the time." Axel shrugged. "You know, like when you were a kid and you'd go flying down this hill going at what felt like a hundred miles an hour and you'd see the tree coming up and you be like—'I'll turn right before it… I'll turn in just a second'—before plowing right into it?"

"I… I'm pretty sure that's your childhood memory and not mine. When I was a kid, I pretty much rotted away on yachts all afternoon. …And played with toy trains."

"Yeah. Minor detail. Whatever. Either way, it made sense to me. Kairi's the kind of girl you'd want to marry if you got to be fifty-five and were miserable and alone. Yanno why? _Because_. Kairi's the kind of girl who could give some love and affection to anyone—make anyone feel good about themselves—even if she barely gave a shit about them."

Roxas had his brows furrowed and his mouth all scrunched up like he was really thinking, and this time he actually was. He knew he was overanalyzing every word coming out of Axel's mouth, but he couldn't help it. Axel didn't often make sense and the more words each tried to force into the other's eardrums, the more confused they ended up getting. So he asked, "But shouldn't that make you want to marry her anyway? Why would you have to be fifty and alone?"

"Fifty-five and _miserable_—that's what I said. And you're kind of forgetting the whole 'I like dick' thing. It's kind of a biggie."

Roxas tried not to cough. Very loudly. It was incredibly strenuous and felt like he was breaking his throat a little. "Right," he said, really meaning _'I'm going to try and block out what you just said and forget all this ever happened.'_

When the silence around them got easy again, Axel let his eyes drop. There was something comforting about Roxas' house—something that most people, he figured, wouldn't really find comforting at all. Within the heavy drapes and the coordinated dishes and the sleek furniture, though, Axel truly felt safe. He felt as though no one would be able to get at him when he was so hidden away in all the riches of Roxas' life. He felt that rich people had it so easy it was laughable. And he felt that, creepily enough and yet more than anything, Roxas' calm indifference to it all—to all the grace and splendor that made up the scenery of his life—that indifference only made it all the more potent. So the safety Axel felt in Roxas' home was some sick combination of Roxas' own personal nature and his "mother's" own personal sense of style.

If you could really call it that.

Anyway, it was all very confusing, but what you really need to know is that Axel had the same sense of security over him at that moment that he always got in Roxas' house—especially when Roxas was right there next to him. So he felt he could say whatever he had to say. And that's exactly what he did.

"So you're not gay," he said.  
Roxas shook his head.

"But…"

"But what?"

"Are you so _sure_? I mean..." Axel licked his lips. He fixed his eyes on a painting across the wall from him, focusing on a little porcelain colored hand of some random chick, outstretched towards a man on a horse. He swallowed hard and memorized the detail of the hand, the position of the hand, and was so entirely focused that he didn't even notice when he'd mustered the courage and slipped out the words in a quiet voice: _"How about Dem?"_

"…I don't know…" Roxas mumbled.

"And as stupid and… and fuckin' _childish_ as I'm about to sound… what's so great about him anyway?"

"I don't know," Roxas said again.

"And what's so terrible about me?"

"I don't _know_, okay?" Roxas shut his eyes tight and wished, more than anything, for that nice calm peace between them again—that sweet, companionable silence. He was desperate for it, would give anything for it, needed it so bad that it was just pathetic. He turned to look at Axel and started holding up his hands like he was begging, right before he realized what he was doing and clamped them firmly down on the floor. "Can I talk to you for a minute… like I would have a month ago? Before any of this?" he asked.

"Yeah."

And as amusing as it is, Roxas was quite serious and quite determined when he did exactly as Axel had done some minutes ago. He fixed his eyes on the floor, though, on a little blue flower in a sea of blue flowers webbed around the edge of tile in some ugly pattern Roxas had always hated. But it was a thing to focus on and it was some wealth to hide behind. And even though it took him a long time, he eventually managed to grit out what he was trying to say, though he struggled much more than Axel had.

Perhaps paintings were more potent than tiles. Who could say? All that was said right then, were strangled, sad little words that bubbled out of Roxas' throat like yaps, squeaks, and wheezes—a terrifying combination of noises, if you think about it.

"I want to be with… with—girls because it's… Hang on. It's weird to say. It's like… I want to be with girls. Because in that kind of relationship it's like I'd be in… in charge, kind of. I'm not being sexist or stupid or… I'm not **trying** to be. But I'd be the strong one and I'd be the—well, the _guy_, you know? And she'd be there for me when I needed her and comfort me when I needed her and I'd be strong because of it. And at the same time… With guys, I'd be… kind of… protected, I guess. And it'd be… well, pretty even and I wouldn't have to impress or, or try to live up to some image of… the… lady's man or whatever. I'd just be safe. And understood."

Roxas blinked. The hard part was over. His voice seemed happy to be back to normal. "Does that make any sense at all?" he asked.

"Yeah." Axel nodded, face dead serious, and kept nodding for maybe five seconds before he allowed himself a loud giggle-type noise and said, "But Roxas, you're never gonna be a lady's man. Jesus, where they hell'd you get that idea? Freakin' GQ? You've gotta be kidding me! _You_! A lady's man! What's that even mean?"

Trying not to punch Axel in the face, Roxas just let him laugh it off. It took Axel a few minutes to compose himself, but when he did, Roxas was ready and waiting. "So what do I do?" he asked him.

"I can't tell you. I'm biased," Axel confessed, though his confession was a lie. He could've told Roxas in a heartbeat what to do, but he wasn't about to, seeing as he already knew what Roxas' answer would be.

"Well, what would _you_ do?"

Now, Axel didn't really know if Roxas was asking him advice on what to do about Demyx or what to do about women or what to do about Axel himself. It could've been any of those or it could've been the whole broad picture, Axel couldn't say. But he was a broad picture kind of a guy and he assumed Roxas' question could've been phrased something along the lines of: _"Oh, Axel, I think I might just love about every gender in the whole world and I just don't have the slightest clue what to do about it. If I tell my adoptive mother, she'll label me as a queer and if I tell anyone else, they're bound to go similarly ballistic and start trying to convert me to one side or the other."_

So Axel said, "I'd say… Well, I'd say fuck labels. I mean. Seriously. Fuck 'em. Fuck all of 'em. People are just sacks of flesh and fat. One body or another makes no damn difference."

"But what if it's confusing?"

"What _isn't_ confusing?" Axel waited for Roxas to say something, because when it came to rhetorical questions, Roxas was sometimes the kid who took them a bit too seriously. But when Roxas kept his silence, that allowed Axel to laugh a little, and he thought that maybe the laughing helped. "Man," he said, "you'd think someone had promised you another vacation trip through your arctic life at this rate. Perfect understanding and knowing what to do? _Totally_ not in the contract."

"You keep talking about all these contracts," said Roxas.

"Yeah. You signed that one when you were born."

"And the other one? The one you mentioned before?"

"You signed that one the day you met me," Axel grinned. He loved pleasant strolls down a little road called Memory Lane, and he'd take them any time he could. "Remember?" he went. "Summertime and you were sixty-two cents short at the store buying some stupid pop CD. And I thought… Here's a kid worth knowing. He's wearing Calvin Klein jeans and a Ralph Lauren polo and looks like he walked straight off some hotshot runway. And the best part is, he doesn't even have the right change for buying a single, stupid CD."

Maybe it was a combination of Axel's excitement, his grins, and his sporadic laughter. Or maybe it was the memory itself. Either way, even Roxas couldn't help but smile at al that. "Yeah… I think I forgot to pay you back for that, actually."

"Nah, you paid me back, like… three times. I just never told you you'd already paid me back 'cause every time you remembered it and gave me some change, we were always standing in the lunch line and with your sixty-two cents I could buy an extra two cookies."

"You're such an idiot."

"Kiss me?"

"…Uh. Why?"

"Figured I'd ask. Worth a shot." Axel grinned again, shrugged again, and leaned back against the wall. He was high on some kind of adrenaline rush—the kind that only comes from breaking ground with your best friend who you've actually been harboring feelings towards for a very long time—and was almost unaware that anything was out of the ordinary when he up and declared: "Yanno, sometimes I get this crazy, overpowering urge to just rape you."

Roxas blinked. "Dude, don't _say_ stuff like that."

"Don't kill me for being honest."

"Well if that's honesty, I don't want it! Jeeze, Axel."

"You don't get how freakin' adorable you are."

"Just _shut up_, okay?"

"III dunno, I also kinda get this crazy, overpowering feeling, sometimes, that you _like_ this attention."

"You're completely insane."

"Aside from that."

"You're completely insane and I don't want that attention."

"And here I thought I was getting somewhere. Well, crap."

x x x

Luxord had finally done it. He was standing in the garage, staring down at his baby with the kind of adoration usually reserved for new puppies, designer clothing, and expensive beach getaway locations, where the sand's so white it might as well be the surface of the sun. His 'baby', you should probably know, was certainly not a real baby in any sense, though the bond Luxord felt with the motorcycle was oddly, almost creepily paternal.

Marluxia, who had somehow materialized out of nowhere when Luxord was lost in the midst of some glorious stupor, took the moment to clear his throat. When that didn't get Luxord's attention, he just laughed, because laughing was really the only appropriate thing to do. At least, it was either laugh or drool unashamedly at the cycle alongside Luxord, but Marluxia wasn't quite willing to drop himself down to that level just yet.

"Is that what I think it is?" he asked.

"If you're thinking it's a 1980 Yamaha TY80, then yes. Yes it is exactly what you think it is."

"They don't make them like that anymore."

"No, they don't." Luxord turned to look at Marluxia, his grin wide enough to nearly cleave his face in two. "I'm nowhere near being a… _hip indie kid_," he said, "and I've never liked vintage clothing shops, to tell you the truth. But when it comes to motorcycles—well, when it comes to motorcycles, vintage is by far the only way to go."

Marluxia raised an eyebrow, tucked his hands into the pockets of his coat, and surveyed the garage once more. There was Larxene's sexy Thunderbird, the pride and joy of her life. There was Marluxia's sleek, red Jag—the pride and joy of _his_ life. …And then Luxord's new little cycle. And when it suddenly dawned on him just what exactly it was that Luxord had up and done, he nearly felt the urge to drop dead on the spot in a laughing fit.

"Larxene will probably kill you when she finds out you traded in her old Saab for an even older… well. Two-wheeled death house."

"Yeah. I kinda figured that."

Marluxia spun his keys around his finger. He'd been contemplating a run to the grocery store, but hadn't yet mustered up the courage to brave the snow. Not that he was cowardly—he simply didn't care for snow or for the foul salt-and-grime residue it left all over his beloved car. Luxord was a good distraction from what had to be done, and he wondered then if he would be in the right for what he was about to say—if repeating what he was sworn to keep silent would do him good or bad.

"And I guess you should also know," he said, "Larxene's worried about you."

"What a _load_," Luxord drawled.

"I'm serious. She's even angrier than usual."

"No, that's just the PMS," Luxord cheerfully reminded him. He would never tire of tormenting Marluxia. It was one of the few reasons he still had patience enough to live at home. "I guess your brain doesn't keep track of all the unpleasant months you've spent together," he said, "So lemme clue you in you. A fourth of those months? She wants to rip your head off like a praying mantis in heat."

Marluxia just kind of scowled and inched towards his car, which Luxord was standing too close to for his comfort. "Thanks," he said, "I could've done without that."

"Come on. You think I don't know my own sister?"

"Not as well as you should. And I'm not saying she knows you well either—I don't even know you well." Marluxia turned completely white in the face as Luxord leaned oh-so-casually against his Jaguar, grubby fingers all up and on the nice wax job he'd given the precious thing not just one week ago.

"Real shocker there," Luxord said, making a serious effort to sound bored and detached, but completely unable to hide the amusement he was getting from Marluxia's face.

"Get off my car."

And Luxord obliged. He even chuckled as he put a good three foot distance between both him and the car, watching as Marluxia moved to fill the space, taking his sleeve and buffing at the space where Luxord's fingers had been.

Cramming his hands into the pockets of his jeans, Luxord shot Marluxia's back an impish sort of grin and he went, "Look. Larxene? She's only worried about Larxene. _If_ that. I'm not in the equation, and in another few months I won't even be in the picture anymore as far as she's concerned. Right now? I'm a tax break. Soon? I'm out of her life and zooming along some little freeway on my beautiful cycle without a helmet or a care in the world."

"College?" Marluxia prompted.

"Haven't decided."

"You'll get accepted. I'm assuming you know that."

"I'm not _worried_ about acceptance letters. Me getting in anywhere isn't the question. The question is whether or not I want to go, and right now, I'm feeling like that's a no," Luxord said with a laid-back shrug of his shoulders.

"You like the idea of waiting tables for the rest of your life?" Marluxia asked him. "Or retail maybe. There's a fun career track."

"You know, didn't you just say you knew nothing about me?" Luxord couldn't help but revel in how easy it apparently was to outsmart his brother-in-law. It made his day almost bright. He tapped one finger to the side of his nose and beamed yet another grin, said, "_Remember it_. You don't know me. I have plans, okay? I'm not some slacker who doesn't give a shit about anything. I know what I'm doing."

And yet Marluxia wouldn't have been Marluxia—and he certainly wouldn't have been married to Luxord's sister—if he couldn't, on occasion, hold his own in an argument. He popped open the door to his car, rested his fingers against his chin in a thoughtful manner, and then slyly said, "Let me guess. This has absolutely nothing to do with Xigbar."

"…No. It doesn't," Luxord growled.

Meeting Luxord's eyes and finding that it did, indeed, have quite a lot to do with Xigbar, Marluxia couldn't help but feel just the slightest, most miniscule little bit of sympathy for him. After all, Marluxia himself had once been a troubled teenager. …_Once_. …Though he couldn't ever remember being that stupid and obnoxious. Still, he felt he owed something to Luxord, however small a thing it was. He closed himself in the car and then rolled down the window halfway, hesitating quite a bit before he managed to get the words out, wincing as he said them.

"Do you want to come inside and…" He stopped, coughed, hesitated some more, then finished with, "…talk about it?"

Luxord stared at him for nearly a full minute, trying to figure out if he was serious or not. And upon discovering that he really was quite serious, Luxord's expression turned to one of absolute horror. "_God_ no," he said. "You're going to the grocery store. I need more Frosted Flakes. And you're the last person I would confide in." And then, almost as though he felt his words had been a bit much, he felt the need to add on genially, "It's nothing personal. I just think you'd be a bit crap when it comes to talking about anything of importance."

Marluxia glared, rolled up the window, and could just be seen saying something that looked—by the way his mouth moved—like: "I hate teenagers."

"I hate you, too," Lux said, waving as the garage door opened and Marluxia backed out. "Don't forget my Tony the Tiger."

Feeling quite relieved and chipper from arguing with Marluxia, Luxord strolled back inside and was instantly slapped in the face with reality when his sister greeted him from the dining room with two sharp words.

"Luxord. Door."

"What?"

"The _door_, dipshit. Someone's there for you." She huffed, rolled her eyes, and then stalked off to some more remote part of the house where she could only hope her brother would be unable to find her.

Curious, Luxord headed towards the front door, completely taken aback by the first face he saw as he peered out the window and then swung the door on open. "…Yuna?" he went.

Yuna—frantic, wet, and helplessly cold—hurried to get some words out before the inevitable happened. "Oh Luxord, I'm so sorry," she said, "I—he—well…"

And then Luxord looked to the left, where Xigbar stood. "Wha—Oh, Xigbar, I ha—"

And then Xigbar's fist smashed against the side of his face.

"_**Je**__sus_!"

x x x

Alright. We're going to put that moment on hold—Luxord reeling, having been knocked backwards by Xigbar's rather large and unfriendly hand. There's a good chance you're confused as hell and I would very much hate to see you give up on the entire thing altogether, just because Xigbar's insane actions make little to no sense. In actuality, they made perfect sense. At least, in Xigbar's head they did.

That morning, Xigbar had received a call from Roxas. This was strange for two reasons. First of all, Roxas was a fairly late sleeper. Second of all, the phone call had come in at a quarter past four in the morning. This led a half-asleep Xigbar to believe that Roxas hadn't slept at all that night, and he was fairly sure that even jetlag from Alaska couldn't have been held responsible for that. Roxas went on to explain, in some slightly hysterical, slightly babbly manner that Xigbar barely understood a word of, that it wasn't Alaska at all that was responsible for his brief bout of insomnia. In fact, it was Axel.

After spending half an hour trying to decipher just what the hell Roxas was even saying, Xigbar then spent yet another twenty minutes trying to calm the kid down enough so that he could offer some advice. Even though Xigbar would willingly be the first to admit that he was terrible at giving advice, he just kind of assumed that Roxas had called for just that. Granted, it wasn't the best decision Roxas had ever made, but who could say. Roxas had never been known for his outstanding decision making skills—he'd just been known for holding the position as editor of the school's barely-alive literary magazine at a very young age.

Some time around six or so, Xigbar gave up on Roxas entirely. Both of them were sleep deprived, though Roxas was a severe case and Xig only a mild one. He told the boy to go to bed and not to call him again until he'd made a nice, organized list of all the things he had to say, just so that Xigbar wouldn't have to listen to the same repeated statement—_"I don't even know, I think he's totally crazy or something, but maybe that's just me, I mean, it could be flattering to some people but, I, well, I think he's totally crazy or something, but maybe…"—_over and over again. All in all, it was the worst phone call of Xigbar's life to date, and it was just sad that it had to come from Roxas, who was usually so sane about anything and everything. So, being stuck awake at such an absurd hour of the morning, Xigbar did the only truly logical thing he could.

Xig had headed off to Starbucks. It was the only place he could think of that Luxord probably wouldn't go to, seeing as Xigbar figured that now that Luxord was undeniably queer, he was probably also highly emotional and wouldn't dare to go near anywhere that would remind him of his most recently failed conquest. (All this is complete and utter bullshit, mind you—Luxord had all the emotional capacity of a snail on speed when he was fast asleep that Sunday morning as Xigbar headed out for coffee.)

Entering the coffee shop was like a step back in time for Xig. He didn't often frequent Starbucks because it constantly smelled of burnt coffee and stale baked goods and there was usually a crowd of smokers and bums littering the front of it and making him gag and die a little every time he dared approach. But then, in the dead of winter, the place was largely empty on the outside, with a few quiet customers seated at chairs and tables on the inside, deeply involved in their newspapers and not giving Xigbar the time of day. In a way that was exactly how he liked it. For these customers didn't even look up when a familiar little voice called out to him from the back of the shop.

"Xigbar!" Rikku was bouncing on the balls of her feet, which, Xigbar couldn't help but notice, were dolled up in some hairy-boot-monstrosity that made her look like a very skinny yeti come to visit. Still, she was happy, and happiness was apparently in high demand those days when it seemed so hard to find.

Xigbar headed on over and Rikku took up her spot behind the counter like a good barista should. She planted her elbows down and cradled her chin in her hands and shot Xig a beaming smile which quickly turned inquisitive as she glanced over his left shoulder, then his right. "Heyyy, where's your other half, huh?" she asked him.

"Oh, Luxord? Uh, he's probably at home, I guess_." Being gay and stuff_, Xigbar failed to mention.

Rikku's expression suddenly turned to one of sympathy and concern and Xigbar wished she hadn't brought Luxord up. Obviously that boy was just bad news now anywhere his name was mentioned. Rikku bit her lip and lifted her head from her hands. She asked, "Is everything okay? I mean, he's alright and everything, right?"

"Ye-eah, I was just out. Early in the moring. …To get coffee. …I mean, you guys do sell coffee here and all, right?" Xigbar made a feeble attempt at a grin, and Rikku had either seen far worse or didn't care that Xigbar's mouth was twisted into some kind of pathetic, loopy line of glee. She stood herself up straight, got the message, and didn't mention Luxord again.

All the while she was waving one hand and grabbing a nearby cup, uncapping a Sharpie and babbling away. "Ha, ha, ha. You're hysterical. So what can I get for ya?"

"I dunno, just pick something."

"You know I'm going to make it a raspberry-something. I just lo-ove raspberries!"

"If you say so."

"That's _just_ what I like to hear!"

Xigbar also didn't mention the fact that he hated raspberries, but he figured he could suck up the hatred long enough to chug down whatever ungodly sugary thing it was that Rikku was about to serve up for him. As he waited at the end of the counter he was presented with yet another familiar face—sweet and heart shaped and framed with light brown hair and set with two eyes that worried like crazy the second they fixed on him.

"Xigbar…"

"Oh, ah, heyyy… Yuna." She bustled right on over as soon as she saw him, and it was only then that Xigbar noticed she was trailed by a tall, lean male shadow of shorts. Her shadow's choppy hair was similar to hers, but styled up in a professional bleached-blonde do that just about screamed upper crust the moment Xigbar laid eyes on it. Though the shadow himself was dressed down a bit, his snug thermal shirt and rinsed jeans still played up a body Xigbar was silently, unknowingly jealous of.

He hated beautiful people. Why did he have to be so damn surrounded by them?

As though suddenly realizing that she did, in fact, have a shadow, Yuna blushed a heavy, cute sort of pink and waved her hands around like she was on the verge of doing a little dance. "Oh, I'm sorry!" she went, turning to introduce her shadow. "This is Tidus. Tidus, I told you about Xigbar, remember?"

Shockingly handsome Tidus grinned, revealing a set of completely unnatural pearly whites as he did so. The boy was so beautiful, Xigbar was fairly sure that he was actually a girl and that Xigbar himself had just stepped into some sort of twisted lesbian adventure film. Completely oblivious to how attractive he was, Tidus stuck out a hand for Xigbar to shake, saying, "Hey, yeah, how could I forget! Pleased to meetcha!"

"Same." Xigbar warily took said hand, gave it a little shake, and returned his own hand safely to his side.

"So… how is Luxord feeling today?" Yuna asked.

Xigbar could not have been more frustrated or weirded-out if he seriously had just sat himself down and made a very conscious effort at it. He might as well just have been some limb attached to Luxord's body—he certainly wasn't a separate entity—that much was being made clearer by the minute. Turning his eyes to the ceiling, Xigbar heaved a terrific sigh and made with the truth, because Yuna's open and waiting face just invited nothing _but_ the truth.

"Man, why's everybody keep asking me that? I don't _know_. Is he, like, my twin or something?" Xigbar asked. Aware he was getting worked up and hating himself a little for it, he blinked a few times and then offered a sheepish sort of grin. "Whoa, yikes, sorry."

Yuna, however, didn't look startled or taken aback in the least, which Xigbar did find just the tiniest bit odd. Usually it wouldn't be a normal sight for a seventeen year old boy to sigh and bitch like a thirteen year old girl, but Yuna just studied him with a careful expression before her eyebrows shot up just ever so slightly as it dawned on her. "Luxord told you, didn't he?" she asked.

The response that followed was completely involuntary.

"YOU KNEW?!" Xigbar hollered. Every single head in the building snapped towards him, the previously quiet, contemplative newspaper-readers disturbed from their silence and quite visibly peeved because of it. Suddenly Xigbar found himself looking at a sea of very angry and unhappy faces—not to mention Rikku's highly amused face as she set his drink down at the bar and twirled away. He coughed. Said, "…Whoa. Yikes. Sor—" and then turned back to Yuna as soon as he realized he was repeating himself. He promptly repeated himself yet again, dropping his voice to a near whisper as he grabbed the drink Rikku had left him, trying desperately hard to ignore the flowers and rainbows she'd drawn all over the cup.

"You _knew_?" he hissed.

"I thought… you'd be happy," Yuna offered.

Apparently stuck on this one thought, Xigbar said it again. "You _**knew**_?"

Tidus, still standing awkwardly at Yuna's side, scratched the back of his head and shot Xigbar this quizzical, yet slightly, ever-so-slightly sympathetic kind of look. "Yeah, I think we kinda got that part, buddy," he said.

"Look, you don't even know who we're talking about," Xigbar almost snarled.

"Sure I do. Luxord. We go way back," Tidus told him.

Xigbar blinked. "…Whaaa?" _The babysitting story was… partially true?_

Tidus grinned again. Obviously the only memories he had of Luxord were good ones, and Xigbar couldn't help but remember the days when he would've fit under that same category. "Yeah, I met him when I was a senior over at the academy—right when he started," Tidus told him, still upbeat all the while. "Pretty cool guy, but _man_ has he got a weird family, huh? Me 'n some guys from the team went over there after school one day 'cause Lux was having this end-of-the-year party, right? His sister's _wild_." Yuna blinked at him and he sort of fumbled around to try and make up for it. "I mean, wild, like… crazy-wild," he told her. "Definitely not hot-wild."

"You're so weird," she said.

"Well—"

Xigbar didn't really want to see them basking in their happy couple glory, so he flapped his hands around and did his best to interrupt while looking frantic, because if you were frantically interrupting, it was generally okay.

"Wait, wait, wait. You know Luxord," Xig said to Tidus, before turning to Yuna again. "So… you know Luxord, too, then. I mean… more than you… seemed to know Luxord."

Yuna hesitated for all of a second or so before she turned her gaze to the floor and just flat out confessed the fact that had been so obviously hanging over her head all morning. "…We were in the same physics class last year," she said.

"… And… Rikku? And Paine?" Xig asked.

"Rikku took film study with him and… well, Paine just knows him through Rikku." The final obvious, metaphorical punch to the face followed soon after. Yuna chanced a look up at Xigbar, saw his confused and puzzled face, and just put it all in black and white for him. "We all go to the same school."

Xigbar stared. "And why are you all so concerned about him? Just you private school kids?"

"…His mom died a few days ago, Xigbar. …Anyone would be concerned. …Aren't you?"

That, lovely ladies and charming gentlemen, is how it came to be that Xigbar flew out of the Starbucks, raspberry frou-frou drink in hand and all, only one destination on his mind. Yuna, who by that point felt as though she'd gone and ruined the lives of two of her friends forever (she did indeed consider Xigbar a friend, just to clear that one up for you—it didn't take much for Yuna), followed right behind him and Tidus followed right behind her. Though she couldn't very well stop Xigbar from speeding off in his own car for Luxord's house—which was obviously where he was going—she could take advantage of what few resources she had at her disposal. She too, now, had a teenage boy who could speed her from place to place, and that was precisely the resource she took advantage of. Tidus all too happily bent to oblige her.

Zooming along the parkway at what he considered to be the speed of sound, but which was really only 80 mph on a dangerously snowy road, Xigbar took a moment to reflect. It wasn't the best place for that sort of business, seeing as he probably could've hit a patch of black ice and landed himself in the afterlife at any given moment, but Xigbar had never been one for timing things right and that particular instant seemed like a lousy time to start up new habits. Instead, he basked in the revelation that Luxord had assembled an entire crew of private school do-gooders and looped each and every one of them into his crazy conspiracy, all by which he was apparently supposed to get in Xigbar's pants as a result.

Really, the more Xigbar thought about it, the more it seemed like a really deranged waste of time and energy on Luxord's part. If he was going to expend that much effort, he should've just tried to nab that Tidus kid. He was model worthy, after all. Xigbar, on the other hand, seemed like he could rival France's famed hunchback if he really put his mind to it.

He reached Luxord's house in what seemed like no time at all, possibly because he drove the entire way there going at least fifteen miles over the recommended speed limit. He had a hunch that Yuna and Tidus were following him—more than a hunch, really, as he'd seen Tidus tailing him ever since he left the parking lot outside Starbucks—and knew he had just a few short seconds before he was basically going to throw himself out into the world, all fists and furor and teenage angst.

_I am calm, I am cool, I am collected_, he told himself. _I am sympathetic. I am empathetic. I am understanding. I am a shoulder to cry on. I am a cool, platonic, genderless shoulder to cry on…_

Of course, these few short seconds of mental preparation were all Tidus and Yuna needed. Tidus slammed the car in park and Yuna was racing towards the door, her baby-blue snow boots scaling the white of Luxord's front yard without a second thought. Xigbar was right behind her, though he instantly realized that people wore stupid baby-blue boots because it kept the snow out, whereas his sad little sneakers just let the cold shit right on in. So needless to say, he didn't beat Yuna to the door. You already knew that. What exactly happened after, though, could be news to you.

You see, as soon as Luxord opened the door and Yuna uttered her frantic little exclamation of his name, Xigbar reached the top step, standing right alongside her. Having been raised in an excruciatingly polite household her entire life, Yuna graciously and unknowingly stepped to the side to make room for Xigbar. She did so without a second thought, and therefore was completely dazed and confused when she opened her eyes to find herself capsized in a large, snow-covered hedge that stood right next to the walkway. She mostly certainly hadn't seen the ice and the ice (being ice, after all) certainly hadn't seen her and the two of them hadn't made the best of friends as soon as Yuna stepped on it. On the bright side, Tidus maneuvered his way over the front lawn and helped to right her from her sad, stranded position before dusting all the snow off her like the bumbling gent he sort of, kind of could be.

Both of them looked towards the front door, behind which Luxord and Xigbar had disappeared without word or notice. Only Tidus had seen Xigbar's fist meeting dead-on with Luxord's face, and he elected not to tell Yuna about it, because odds were that it would just throw the poor girl into absolute guilty hysterics.

Meanwhile, behind the door, Luxord was rubbing the side of his face and staring at Xigbar incredulously while Xigbar, in turn, tried desperately hard to pretend like that punch hadn't left his hand in absolute agony. If it was any sort of consolation to much of anybody, Xigbar's first thought after he'd punched Luxord was something along the lines of: _Dammit, I'm a complete fucking idiot._

"…Was that some sort of delayed reaction to something I said?" Luxord asked him very, very cautiously.

"Your mom's dead!" It was supposed to be a question, but since Xigbar already knew the answer, it really just came out as a statement. And a rather inappropriate statement, at that.

Slowly, things came together for Luxord, and his expression softened even as his hand continued to cover his injured face. "Somebody told you," he said. Again, another could-have-been-question turned into a truth. Suddenly Xigbar felt like a complete idiot for having not seen it sooner. The black clothes. The mopey attitude. _Duh. Dammit. I'm even more of a fucking idiot._ But all dead mother's aside, he felt there was an equally pressing issue at hand. It was one thing for Luxord's mother to take her own life. That was tragic—worse, it was tragic for Luxord—but ultimately it was his mother's decision and no one else's. If she didn't want to live anymore, no one should have forced her to, and no one did.

However…

"And you're making everyone gay!"

Luxord's eyes widened then, and he was so shocked and confused by what Xig had just said that he almost went and repeated the entire statement, just so he could understand it better. "I'm making everyone—" And then, thankfully, he burst into laughter and just shook his head time and time again. All the while, Xigbar glared at him furiously and every time Luxord tried to compose himself and respond, Xigbar's expression just put him in another fit of laughter. When he finally did get control of himself, he was nearly put to tears. "You're kidding me with this, right?" he said.

"What, like, like Rikku and Paine becoming lesbians wasn't enough for you? And now Axel and Rox—I just got the most _fucked-up_ phone call of my life this morning from Roxas who is a hormonal, confused, utterly hopeless piece of shit now, thanks to you! And then there was that comment you made to Kairi in the—"

"Would you just calm down?"

"WHY? So you can stick your hand in my pants?"

"…Now was that absolutely necessary?"

"Not at all! But like hell that changes anything!"

It was all Luxord could do to keep himself from bursting out in even more laughter. Xigbar was getting so worked up that his face was turning pink and it was made even funnier by the fact that Luxord could not, for the life of him, figure out just what the hell was so upsetting about the entire situation. Between a repressed chuckle or ten, he said, "Xigbar. Listen. It's not even possible for me to… _turn_ anyone gay."

"Well you've sure done damn good job of the impossible then, haven't you?" Xigbar huffed.

"What, you think I recruit people or something? Come over to the dark side—we have free toaster ovens? I bribe them with household appliances? Is that it?" Luxord asked him.

"I don't know! You tell me!"

The panicky, sad note in Xigbar's voice instantly turned Luxord's mood around. His eyebrows drew themselves together in concentration as he tried to think of what to say—some snarky, know-it-all, well-placed comment that would make everything soothed and better. But he couldn't think of any witty words. All he could think of were sappy ones, and that's the last thing he was about to resort to. So he just opted for honesty as best he could. He shook his head and was sincere as could be when he said, "That's not how it is at all. Why do you even think stuff like that?"

"Why do you care what I think?" Xigbar grumbled.

"Because…" he said. And then came the struggle for honesty, which he promised himself he'd try to stick with. He chewed over a series of words in his mouth before just shrugged his shoulder and going, "Well, I don't _know_ why. Logically, I shouldn't care, I guess. Nothing you think makes sense anyway. But I still feel like I ought to know."

"That's a great reason, Lux. Remind me to spill my guts to you some afternoon."

"This one's as good as any other. For… gut spillage."

Xigbar looked back at him with a scowl, but it broke halfway and instead he just kind made some vague gesture that Luxord could only assume he was supposed to understand. "Axel and _Roxas_, man," Xig nearly whined.

"Roxas had that one coming for a long time. I had nothing to do with it."

"Paine and Rikku?"

"And how about Tidus and Yuna, hm? Yuna obviously told you everything."

"Look, don't get pissed at the girl. You're the one who—"

Luxord laughed again at the hilarity of it all and just about threw his hands up in the air when he went, "I'm not _pissed_ at anyone! Yuna's a good girl. She couldn't tell a lie to anyone, even if her life depended on it. I'm just saying, it's not like I just force gay relationships on people. Tidus is definitely a boy. And Yuna is definitely a girl." Luxord folded his arms over his chest, sporting his classic '_So there, ha'_ look that just about drove Xigbar completely batshit crazy every time he saw it.

"Don't pull that shit. I know it was an act, okay? You were in Yuna's physics class. I know the whole story, Lux."

"I don't think you do, actually. When you and I put in a good word for Tidus? We really _were_ putting in a good word for him. Yuna had a thing for him for a long time, and Tidus mentioned to me a few months back about how he was interested in her… So the story goes." He shrugged, obviously trying to play up whatever good grace he might still have had with Xigbar. After all, Luxord had always been a classic good guy. A few undercover conspiracies and manipulative ploys on his part certainly shouldn't have changed that fact.

"Why all the matchmaking?" Xigbar finally asked him.

"Why not?" Luxord grinned and leaned in closer over the table. "Don't you remember that conversation we had about Rikku and Paine?"

"I think you think I invest way more in our conversations than I really do."

Luxord stopped, seemed to think this one over for a bit, and then couldn't help but to just nod in agreement. "Probably," he confessed. "But you told me they were weird. And happy. Something like that." He drummed his fingers against the tabletop, a small smile playing up his face as he haphazardly ran his words through his head before saying them. "It's my humble opinion that the happiest relationships are the weird ones," he told Xigbar. "There has to be _some_ weirdness in all the romance."

"You could've phrased that so much better," Xigbar said with a snort.

"Alright, try this way." Luxord licked his lips, leaned across the table, and couldn't help but laugh again when Xigbar froze in terror. Then he put his mouth right alongside Xigbar's ear and said once more in a very quiet voice, _There has to be some weirdness in all the romance. _And when Xigbar still sat stone still, he laughed again. "Don't get frightened now," he said.

"You think a little hot air scares me? Dude. Grow up," Xigbar retorted.

"Anything for you. How old shall I be?" Lux asked.

"Ninety."

"Aww. Be fair."

"Eighty-seven and not a year younger."

"But why?"

Xigbar smirked cruelly and simple said, "If you can't get it up, it's prooobably unlikely you're going to be having any questionable dreams about me in the near future."

"Now who on earth ever said I dreamed about you?" Luxord asked him. "Why would I have to?"

"Because. That dream'll give you more action than you will ever. And I mean. _Ever_. See from me."

"Are you so sure?"

"Yup." Leaning back in his chair, Xigbar felt strangely confident—strangely at ease. It was almost like Luxord was back to normal, only slightly more perverted this time. He wasn't sure he could ever get used to it—in fact, hoping for that much was probably out of the question—but he could at least pretend, if only for Luxord's sake. After all, the poor kid's mom had just died and everything. It would be downright awful for Xigbar to be a bad friend following that number. So he did as he always did and made a joke of it. "You haven't even tried to buy me off with a free toaster oven yet," he reminded Lux dutifully. "Talk about cheap. Yeesh."

Luxord grinned and the two shared that friendly silence that neither of them had realized they'd been missing. Then Luxord thought of something, something only slightly important. "Hey," he said.

"Huh?"

"Are you sorry for punching me in the face yet?"

"Not a chance in hell."

"Just checking," Luxord said with a smirk.

And with that Xigbar stood up to leave. His mother would have dinner ready soon, and if she got hold of him while he was over and Luxord's, there was no doubt in his mind that she would beg for Xig to bring Lux with him over for dinner. And as much Xigbar was glad to be on half-decent terms with Luxord, he wasn't entirely up for a night of his family praising Luxord's many accomplishments and his glowing future, all the while remaining oblivious to the fact that their pride and joy (Luxord, not Xigbar) was secretly trying to find a way at their only child.

"Call me eventually," Luxord said at the door.

"Right, right." And Xigbar left.

A day went by and he didn't call Luxord, mostly because he spent the day playing with Virtue—the cat never seemed to tire of feathers and bells tied to the end of things—and visiting Dr. Vexen Something-or-other for a final consultation before his surgery, which was supposedly in three days, on New Year's. It didn't even occur to him to tell Luxord about the surgery, because he knew that Lux would just try to talk him out of it and would stop at nothing until he succeeded.

So the day after his visit to the doctor, two days after his phone call from Roxas—whom he hadn't heard from since and whom he hoped was working on that well-constructed conversation list of his—Xigbar's mother called up the stairs from him. She said there was a package at the door for him, that it was too heavy for her to get by herself, that Kurt was out at the hardware store and couldn't get it, and that unless Xigbar wanted whatever it was to get ruined by the snow, he'd better go downstairs and get it. As was the case with Xigbar's mother, she spent about five minutes too many giving him information he didn't need, so by the time she'd finished her speech, he had the box inside and on the dining room table.

He pulled off the plain brown wrapping paper and went through several layers of the stuff before his fingers met cardboard. After that, the expression on his face was nothing short of classic as his eyes fell upon the words and pictures adorning the box.

"_Sensio Toaster Oven_," it said. "_Bake, broil, warm and toast with this Bella Cucina Toaster Oven, made of black stainless steel and—"_

Xigbar didn't need to read any more.

He hauled the box upstairs with a considerable amount of effort, not really wanting to deal with his mother's unavoidable questions as to just why, exactly, Xigbar suddenly had a rather nice, sparkling new toaster over in his possession. Kicking open the door to his room, he shuffled the box inside and promptly dumped it rather unceremoniously on the bed, where Virtue—buried in some pillows—shot him a rather foul look before slinking out into the open, unable to contain that catlike curiosity of his.

So the boy opened the box while the cat watched and the boy silently wished that the box itself was just a joke and that there wouldn't really be a toaster oven inside—that there would just be a false weight and a clever note that said something rather stupid and moronic, something right up Luxord's alley like, say, "_Haha, gotcha_."

But no. There was undeniably a toaster oven in the box. And the more Xigbar opened, the more he realized that the box had been opened before. Oh no… And when he opened the toaster oven door, sure enough, there was a note waiting inside for him. It just didn't say what he wanted it to say. …Not in the slightest.

In Luxord's unmistakable handwriting, the note declared:

_Made reservations for tomorrow. Yes, that's New Year's Eve. No, you don't have a choice. I'll pick you up at seven._

_P.S. Yuna says she's sorry. Actually, she's said it about a million times, give or take a few hundred._

_-Lux._

"…That… that..." Xigbar stared at the note, read it again, and then just stared blankly around the room some more, obviously looking for the right words. Finally, he just settled on a plain and simple: "That _bitch_."

Virtue just yawned, seemed to agree with Xigbar, and then went back to sleep as soon as he realized that the events at hand didn't really concern him at all.

(x) (x) (x)

Thank again to everyone who has so far taken the time to leave an awesome review. You guys are all _supreeemely_ amazing and I love your support and honesty. Hopefully this chapter wasn't a huge disappointment, and I'll just throw in here that I probably won't be focusing on Axel and Roxas again as heavily as I did here. Mostly, that was just me realizing that I'd pretty much left that subplot in the dark, though it is kind of important as a comparison between everyone else and Luxord and Xig. …That didn't really make sense, but pretend it did. Same as always, MUCH LOVE, KIDS. Now for more summer shenanigans.


	9. Sigmund and Freud's Fine Italian Dining

How To Do Nothing At All

'Sigmund & Freud's Fine Italian Dining'

"Look, if you really think this is a bad idea, then don't do it. I mean, nothing says 'I hate you' more than going on a date and purposely making an asshole of yourself. Luxord's a reasonable guy. You could talk yourself out of it if you wanted."

Xigbar wondered if it was physically possible to pinch someone via telephone conversation, because right about then, all of Kairi's supposedly helpful words were coming through as many tiny, painful, annoying little pinches. All over his body. He growled, hoped she didn't hear it, and then waited for her to make some indication that she had. When none came, he threw up his free hand—the one not clutching the cell to his ear—and exclaimed quite theatrically, "That's just **it**, though! _You_ know the happy, hetero_sex_ual Luxord! When he's gay, he's freaky! And _crazy_ intent about stuff, man! You don't get it!"

Though Xig couldn't see it, he could most definitely heard (on some level) the wrinkle Kairi made with her nose, her pouty face and jutted lower lip when she whined, "Ugh, why do all boys insist on calling girls _men_? It's so degrading."

"What, like it's a bad thing to be a dude?" he mumbled, trying to pretend he wasn't grateful for the change in topic. It didn't last too long, though, because when given a carrot, Kairi was all too quick to dangle it in front of someone's face. Then again, such was the nature of all women, Xig figured.

"_Duh_? Where have you been?" she went. "You're the one calling _me_ for advice, remember? Nothing is of greater benefit to men than a woman's insight and intuition." Dangle, dangle, dangle. Xig scowled. Kairi remained perfectly oblivious. Wherever she was.

"I don't have time for your womanly hormones," he insisted. "Just tell me how the hell to get out of this."

It might interest you to know that Xigbar wasn't sitting on his bed while all this was going on. Neither, in fact, was Virtue. Both cat and boy were standing in the very dead center of Xig's bedroom, both of them looking completely baffled by the war zone around them and both of them finding themselves with absolutely nowhere decent to sit—save a floor covered by questionably dated socks and boxers. Everywhere—on every surface on every damn little thing, lay mounds and mounds of clothes. Button-ups and t-shirts, slacks and jeans, polos and hoodies and all unimaginable sorts of teenage disorganization just oozed from the walls of the place and made Xigbar feel strangely claustrophobic. Virtue, however, was quick to recover, and eventually made himself a cozy perch on top of a knitted sweater Xig's mother had given him six years ago.

Frustrated by the mess of his life all around, Xigbar turned to his closet once more. He shoved his hands into the thick of it all, jerking hangers this way and that, revealing one article after another of tragically mismatched and terrifying clothing that he'd apparently been wearing all his life and never noticed until just now_. It figures_, he thought. _It just fuckin' figures._

"What's that noise?" Kairi asked.

"Uh. …What noise?"

"Are you—" There it was again, that unmistakable, particular squeaky squeal of coat hangers that Kairi would never mistake for anything other than what it was. Xigbar realized right then that he couldn't have been more of an idiot if he'd flung himself out his second story window right that very second, and his palm came up and slapped against his face as Kairi asked that unavoidable question:

"Are you _looking through your closet_?"

"I—wh—n—I—what the **hell**, woman, do you have little spy cameras in my room or something?"

"I _know_ that noise. _You're_ trying to figure out what to wear. Oh my god, you're gay, too. What the heck? Why?"

"I'm not gay. I'm not gay. I'm not fucking gay, so just shut up and _tellmewhattodo_."

"Tell him you're not gay then!"

"I already did! …I think."

"What do you mean you _think_? Did you or didn't you?"

Xigbar tried to sit on his bed, but there were too many reject clothes piled on top of it, so he just ended up tumbling rather dejectedly onto his floor, accompanied by various pairs of jeans and khakis. Virtue opened his eyes to half-mast from across the room, wondered why his owner insisted on being such a low-life, and then went back to sleep.

"I _mean_ I said a lot of stuff and I know all of it was very much anti-in-my-pants," said Xig, "but I'm not really one-hundred-percent drop dead sure that I word for word said _I'm not gay_."

"Well, well… Jeeze, Xigbar. No wonder. You're sending mixed messages," Kairi told him.

"_I am not sending mixed messages_. I'm so negative I'd even repel you."

"You _already_ repel me. You're gay, remember?"

"And you're apparently homophobic."

"Oh my god, you just admitted it."

"I did n—would you _stop_ putting shit in my mouth like that? **God**. You know, no wonder Lux gave up pussy, it's just so—"

"Ew, ew, ew, don't _say_ that."

"…You're kidding."

"Stop being filthy."

"It's _your_ anatomy!"

"Then call it what it is!"

"…Va-gi-na," he pronounced.

There came a thick and heavy silence from the other end of the phone as Kairi was running the word 'vagina' through her head over and over—as was Xigbar—and the all-around ugliness of the term made both of them shudder simultaneously. If Xigbar had known it'd been a reaction they'd shared, he probably would've just shuddered again.

Kairi recovered, swallowed, and then said, "…Okay, never mind, I get your point. But that's not even what we're talking about. We're talking about Luxord. And you. And… It's totally not fair, Xigbar. Why are all the nice boys _gay_?"

"Maybe you just know the wrong boys. I mean. You do try and swindle us all into going shopping with you, like… every other weekend. …And sometimes it even works. I mean. All this gayness could even be your doing," Xig accused. Virtue was forced to open his eyes again because of all the noise and rose from his lumpy clothing throne and stalked out of the room entirely, but not before throwing Xigbar a very dark and questionable expression. As things stood, his expression was probably intended to say something painfully intelligent—something along the lines of, '_You fucking idiot,_' and leave it at that.

Xigbar just figured he had to use the litter box.

"…Wow, you really think so?" Kairi asked. "I mean, is that even _possible_? Can you turn people gay just by making them wait outside Victoria's Secret a couple times?"

"No. No I don't really think so. Probably not."

Xigbar had picked up a hairy looking sweater he'd been sitting on and nearly screamed at the sight of the thing. He wondered if it had always looked like that or if it had maybe just been washed on the wrong setting. He silently, secretly hoped for the latter, but feared the first. Either way, there was simply no logic in hanging onto a garment that would've made him look like a distant relative of fuzzy pond scum.

He was so caught up in his morbid fascination with this sweater than when Kairi spoke again, he had to go and ask her to repeat herself. And when she did repeat herself, he found himself desperately wishing that he hadn't even asked in the first place.

"I think you should go," she said.

"_WHAT_."

"I think you should _go_, Xigbar. It'll be fun. Be_sides_, Roxas said he wasn't having a New Year's party this year because he managed to convince his mom he's still really tired from their trip. Oh, and by the way, have you talked to Roxas lately? Because the last time I talked to—"

"You're getting sidetracked, we were talking about me."

"Yeah, well, I've decided I'm not going to help you. I think that going on a date with Luxord could be a… well, an eye-opening experience for both of you, for better or worse." Leave it to Kairi to turn the end of the world into a field of daisies and fucking rainbows. Xigbar wanted to rip his phone to bits with his bare… teeth.

"…I hate you," he told her.

"But I'd be happy to come over and help you pick out what to wear, if you want," she offered.

"I hate you," he said again.

"Oh don't be silly. I heard the squeaky, remember? The closet squeaky?"

"_Why are you being stubborn_? You're supposed to be the cool one!"

Kairi wasn't entirely sure what sea of people Xigbar was envisioning when he selected her as the 'cool one' among them. She had her beauty and her decent fashion sense, but she had never considered herself 'cool', especially when it came to ranking her among Xigbar's friends. So she knew he was lying even before Xigbar himself knew he was lying, and she just sighed happily and cooed into the phone, "Aww. That's sweet. But, uh…. Nuh uh. Not working. I've made my choice and I'm sticking by it. Now do you want my help or not?"

"I choose death first," Xig grumbled.

"Alrighty then. Well, if you change your mind and decide you need me, you have my number! …That reminds me. How'd you even get my number?"

"You have _mine_," he said, remembering the wreck-of-a-girl-in-Luxord's-backseat day. Which was the same day as the birth-of-a-deformed-cat day. It was, all things considered, a day that would go down in Xigbar's personal history as being quite epic and life altering.

"I have everyone's phone number. But not everyone has mine," Kairi was babbling on. "I mean, I'm really finicky about giving my number out to people and I—"

"Well, I dunno, Roxas or somebody probably gave it to me."

"Or maybe you saved it in your phone from that one time I called you?"

"Nah, I'm not that obsessive." Xigbar picked up a sock that looked suspiciously similar to the sweater he'd just told himself he was going to burn the first chance he got. He also looked at the clock and realized that he only had eight hours to figure a way out of this mess and Kairi was doing nothing but making herself a terrible time-suck. "Why are we even talking about this? I'm supposed to be pissed at you," he said.

"Face it. It's a lost cause. Anyway, I gotta roll, sooo, like I said, gimme a call if you need me! Bye-eee."

"Burn in hell," he told the phone he told the phone after Kairi had hung up. Virtue, who had just mustered the patience to head back into Xigbar's room, stopped in the doorway upon hearing the words. "Not you, I mean," Xigbar told the cat. But Virtue had already turned back around, tail in the air defiantly, and disappeared down the hallway.

"Fuck," Xig said, because in a situation like his, there really wasn't much else to say.

Just when he thought it couldn't possibly have been any worse, there came a little tap-tap-tapping at his bedroom door, which was already ajar from all of Virtue's travels, so he didn't know why the hell someone would think they'd have to knock. Much less even _verbalize_ it like they did.

"Knock-knock! Can I come in?"

"Hey mom."

His mother stood in the doorway rather awkwardly, because there really wasn't anywhere she could plant her feet without trudging all over Xigbar's stuff. And usually her son was fairly tidy about most things—there was the occasional pair of boxers here and there, but nothing too serious—so she didn't know what on earth was the cause for the sudden tornado that appeared to have devastated her son's room. No, she didn't know, and not in a millions years could she have probably guessed. She just kept standing there with a glass of milk and a plate of cookies until Xigbar finally realized what the problem was and began clearing a pathway for her by sweeping clothes off to one side with his feet.

"Sweetie, I think it might be a little early to start putting away your winter clothes. …Or is all this laundry?" she asked him.

His voice came out muffled from behind a pile of shirts and hoodies and whatnot he unloaded from the bed. "Nah, it's cool," he told her, right before throwing the whole pile wildly into some far corner of his room. "Just, uh… lookin'. Yanno. Seein' what I've got and everything." Xigbar forced the most retarded grin he could muster and then moronically placed his hands on his hips. He did a slow, steady spin, surveyed the room, and nodded. "…Yeeep," he said. "Those are my clothes. …Yep."

"…Are you looking for anything in particular?" she asked him curiously.

"Nope. Juuust lookin'."

His mother took a few cautious steps in before scuttling over to perch on the edge of his bed. Xigbar sat down next to her, for lack of anything better to do, and proceeded to stew in his misery until her voice pulled him out of it.

"I brought cookies! They're oatmeal!"

"Luxord's favorite," he couldn't help but note.

"I haven't seen him the past couple days. You two aren't… I mean… everything's alright?"

"Yuuup." Xigbar snagged a cookie from the plate and devoured the whole thing in one bite. He was surprised by how hungry he was. Usually he was on top of his stomach and its many needs, always catering to its every whim with chicken and roast beef and chips and salsa and soda and Gatorade, but apparently he'd underestimated how much energy it took to brutally assault one's closet. He was _starving_.

"Do you want another? I made them for you," she told him.

Xigbar highly doubted this, seeing as _his_ favorite cookies were coconut macaroons and there wasn't a plate of those puppies sitting in front of his face, now was there? But he wasn't an entirely cruel son and he was more than capable of giving his mom a nod, a, "'Kay," and proceeding to eat the entire plateful before her big, doting eyes. She watched on with that kind of misplaced, uncalled for admiration that only a mother could possess for her son whilst he stuffed his face.

"Sweetie, can we talk?" she asked when he was done.

"…About… what?" Xigbar wished he could've regurgitated the cookies onto the plate without being rude about it. Maybe they were laced with some drug that would make him admit everything to his mother. Maybe they had some of that potion that was in those books that were about wizards and had nothing much at all to do with cookies or gay best friends who tried to seduce you with kitchen appliances.

"I just… I miss you."

"**Huh**?"

"You know… I miss… when you _told_ me things."

Xigbar opted not to remind his mother that he had stopped telling her things the moment he found out what the hell a wet dream was and had entered into the pre-teen world of silence and parental seclusion. That, he figured, was something no one needed to know about, least of all his poor, emotionally unstable mother. But whether he was being considerate or dodgy, another glance at the clock was all it took to get Xig fidgeting again and forgetting the whole matter. All those hours he had to come up with a semi-plausible excuse to get out of all this were rapidly slipping away, and if that failed then he would have to resort to last-minute bulimia and blowing chunks all over the living room floor to prove he was just not fit to go anywhere that evening.

…Needless to say, it wasn't really a prospect Xigbar looked forward to. So he fidgeted some more, he twirled his thumbs a bit, and then he went, "Mom, I don't really know if now's the—" but was cut off mid-sentence by an abrupt wail that erupted out of his mother's mouth and hit him on the side of the face like a gale force wind.

"You're growing up so fast! I feel like I haven't done enough for you! What if you're not ready?"

_Ready for what? Being molested by my best friend? Well gee, there's not a whole lot you could've done to prepare me for that, mom, and I don't see any other ominous events lurking in my future, so WAY TO FAIL_. Xigbar didn't say any of this, naturally. He just sort of stared at her rather goggle-eyed while she proceeded to bawl and cry and smudge her mascara all over the place, and when he finally regained some control of his limbs, he just kind of patted her on the shoulder awkwardly like one would a baby with the hiccups.

"_Jesus_, Ma. …I mean. Don't cry, for crying out loud."

"Oh, Xigbar! I've been a terrible mother!"

"No… you kinda haven't."

"Look at me, I—I—I don't even know anything about you anymore!" _Thank God for small miracles_, he thought. Right before he mentally stumbled upon a complete and total stroke of brilliance.

He turned to face his mother with such excitement and such eagerness and such pure, absolute glee that she was completely caught off guard and instantly stopped crying just so she could look at him with astonishment. "We could always fix that!" he told her cheerfully. "We can even hang out! We can all, like, play board games and shi—I mean, junk! Yeah! Let's do that tonight! We can start at, like, six-thirty or something and not stop 'til the new year!"

She stared at him in shock for a few moments, sniffling here and there before saying rather innocently, "…But you're going out with Luxord tonight."

_WHAT IS THIS_, he yelled in his mind. In reality, all he did was kind of flatten out his eyebrows and look at the clock again. Just a little over seven hours to go. It wasn't looking good.

"Well that was him on the phone an hour ago—" his mother went on. "I called upstairs to tell you it was him, but you didn't answer, so, well, I just talked to him myself. He said you two were getting together tonight."

"There's no escape," Xig whispered to himself with that sort of doomsday tone that only has a place in very low budget films. His mother didn't hear him though because she was so preoccupied in her own head by thinking of all the wonderful ways she could get to know her son better in the few months she had left with him before he headed off to college. Apparently, number one on this list was engaging Xig in a completely pointless and mind-numbing game of twenty questions, which she proceeded to start up right then and there.

"So. What's your favorite band, Xigbar? You kids all like music, right? And… bands and things, right?"

"Yup."

"So tell me! I want to know! What's your favorite band?"

"Too many. Don't have one."

"Okay, well, what kind of music do you like?"

"Death metal. And stuff."

"What's… '_death metal_'?"

"Uh. Kinda… roaring and other sounds like it."

"That's… original, dear." She sipped gingerly at the untouched glass of milk in her hand and smiled pleasantly to herself, obviously quite pleased with how things were going. Meanwhile, Xigbar was trying to figure out a nice way to get rid of his mother that wouldn't cause her to start crying again.

"How about your favorite book?" she asked him.

"Don't read."

"What? Wh—when did you stop reading?"

"Ma. I've used Sparknotes for the past five years. It's been a while."

"But reading is good for you!"

Xigbar said nothing and his mother realized that her little game was over before she'd so much as even gotten started. She wondered when it was that she stopped shuttling Xigbar to the library every week and insisting that he check out the max number of books before he was allowed to leave. Then she wondered if that was really the right parental thing to do after all—locking your child in a roomful of books until they proved they could read the titles of six of them and carry them out the door. Something was wrong with that picture and she didn't want to think about it anymore, so she looked around the room and sighed. "…You need new clothes."

"These are fine," Xigbar told her, though it was obviously a blatant lie if the algae sweater had anything to do with it. His mother toed a pair of black jeans that looked like they belonged to a twelve year old, which, at one point, they had. Xigbar had been twelve once, after all. He'd been twelve once and hadn't gone through his wardrobe since. But as though to prove that he could be resourceful, Xigbar reached into the piles of ugliness and pulled out a sweater and a pair of pants, laying them out on the bed and crossing his arms triumphantly.

His mother surveyed his work and held her tongue for a moment, her gaze darting from her son to the clothes on the bed and back to her son again and eventually it just got to the point where she couldn't keep quiet about it anymore for fear of simply exploding.

"Xiggy, those won't do. They don't even match."

"Sure they do. Everything goes with army green."

"No… no it doesn't. Is that _mauve_?"

"…No. It's red."

"It's _mauve_, dear. I didn't even know you _owned_ anything that color. Is it new?"

"Grandma gave it to me, like… three years ago."

"Well, sweetie, that won't even fit you now."

"I can roll up the sleeves."

Mother and son stared at each other for quite some time, each one willing the other with their eyes to back down first. For all that Xigbar had a pretty mean teenage stare on his side, his mother had years of experience with staring other people down and knew how to get her way in the end. She sniffled like she felt another cry coming on, and Xigbar instantly broke eye contact and feigned a tremendous interest in his bedside table. His mother waited a few moments, throwing in a few more pitiful sniffs every once and a while, before she suddenly stood up, dropped the empty cookie plate on the floor, picked it up again, and then said: "I know what we'll do! Let's go shopping!"

…_And the world wonders why good men go gay._ "Um. No."

"That's exactly what we'll do! We'll go shopping and we'll buy you some nice new clothes to fit your age and then we'll go have lunch together and you can tell me everything I've been missing out on!"

"I don't… where did this even _come_ from?" he asked desperately. He had a right to know, after all, what would cause the crumbling of his half-assed escape plans and his ensuing sentence to a night of torture.

"Well my baby's getting surgery," his mother said, as though that somehow explained everything away. When in actuality, _it didn't explain a damn thing_, and just as Xigbar was on the verge of telling her as much, she disappeared out of his room, down the hallway and down the stairs. Xig had no choice but to follow, and when they hit the first floor, she said to him, "After all, you might not be the same after it. So I want to know how you are now, so I'll always remember. It's a mother thing."

"Whaddya mean I might not be the same?!" Xigbar stared at her in horror—horror and nothing else, just as it was a horrible thought to think that he might come out of anesthesia as Pamela Anderson or Dolly Parton or some other horrible person. (Not that he had anything against Pamela Anderson or Dolly Parton, especially. He was sure they were both charming women and all, it's just that at the time, he really didn't want to _**become**_ them. It was at the very dead bottom of his list of aspirations in life, right below rinsing his head in gasoline and setting his head on fire.)

"Enunciate your words sweetie. 'What _do_ you mean?' And all I mean is that looking different—well, looking different sometimes changes the way a person acts. It's impossible to keep a person's insides completely separated from their outsides, after all. The two have to meet somewhere. And that's where the change happens." This sounded remarkably deep for his mother, Xigbar had to admit, but it didn't really bode well for him if that was the way things were. He stared blankly at her, trying to cover up the fact that his insides were churning and his brain was burning with all the dreadful things that could go wrong—all the people he could turn into and all the people who would hate him for it.

His mother took one look at him and burst into laughter. "Oh don't worry, Xiggy! It'll all be fine! You'll come out of there happier than ever and you'll just _shine_, I just know it."

"I don't really wanna shine, I just wanna look kinda normal." Xigbar stood in the hallway as he watched his mother bustle into the kitchen and rinse off the plate and glass before returning to the front hall to grab her purse from the closet. "Do we have to go shopping?" Xigbar asked her drearily.

"It's about time you had a change of wardrobe, dear. I get so tired of seeing you wear the same old baggy pants and sweatshirts day in and day out. It wouldn't really hurt you to dress a little better, now would it? Besides, just think of it as a sort of… a sort of _preview_ of the new you. After tomorrow, that is."

"I forgot that was tomorrow."

"Don't _worry_, Xiggy. Trust me. It'll be just fine. You can start the new year with a brand new face."

x x x

Shopping was terrifying, to say the least. Lunch—that wasn't bad. Food was never bad. But shopping was the worst it had ever been. All the prices rung up one after another and it was Christmas all over again, only it was the worst Christmas ever in Xigbar's book if that was the case. His mother insisted on seeing every single thing he tried on, which meant that probably half of the _four hour shopping endeavor_ was spent walking all the way out of the men's dressing room and out into the open where his mother could criticize or admire him in front of crowds of people milling around the mall and looking at him with what he thought was a great deal of amusement.

He hated it. There was nothing worse. In a way it was like a preview for the evening. 'If you thought that was bad, just wait for what's in store!' That sort of thing.

On the bright side, Xigbar had a shitload of new clothes, most of which his mother assured him would decent and passable for the next few years. He wasn't sure if every boy his age owned as many polos, collared shirts, crewnecks, jersey knits, khakis, black slacks, brown slacks, jeans, or grayscale shades of undershirts as he now did, but what did he care? With all this shit to choose from, he would at least have something to put over his bare ass this evening. Not that he _did_ care what he looked like, he reminded himself. He most certainly didn't.

He stood in the center of his room (which was even more of a disaster now that it held twice as many clothes as it had earlier in the day) and looked towards the ceiling, which was bound to hold an answer. It didn't, so Xigbar tried to look beyond the ceiling.

"God. If you exist, which by this point, I'm kinda doubting… but if you do exist, please smite me now. Smite me good," he said, and waited expectantly. Virtue emerged from a pile of pillows and blinked sleepily at Xigbar and Xigbar broke his concentration away from his pathetic prayer to look, in turn, at his cat. "What," he said. "Go back to sleep." And the more he waited and the more apparent it became that God was a vindictive little man who liked to see Xigbar squirm and wouldn't even give him the smallest smite—the more frustrated Xigbar got. He even thought of calling God names to spur him into action, but thought better of it at the last second and just grumbled nonsense to himself and went about getting dressed.

He settled on an off-white collared shirt and that charming pair of brown slacks his mother had bought him and then donned his Adidas because he refused to take this matter to dress-shoe level. Plus he felt confident in his Adidas and was fairly sure they looked pretty cool—more than that, they were brown! And nothing matched brown better than brown, he figured. Of course, many people could probably tell him otherwise, but he wouldn't have listened.

Xigbar brushed his hair back into a ponytail and then looked at his hands. Fingernails? Butchered short and dirt-free. All clear there, then. Luxord's bracelet still hung innocently on Xigbar's wrist, and for a moment he considered taking it off. It would be weird, after all, to wear the damn thing every single day. But the brown leather strap matched the pants, too! And the more things Xigbar could match together, the happier he would feel—he was sure of it! Dressing up was fun, he realized then. It was like the 'Name That Color!' game he'd played as a very small child, only infinitely better and more expensive.

"Xiggy! Luxord's here!"

"I'll be right there!" Xig called downstairs. He steadied himself, gave himself a quick once over in the mirror. And then he proceeded to talk to himself like the largest of idiots.

"Alright, Xig," he said. "This is not a date. Your best friend who happens to like dick is just taking you out." …That sounds… suspiciously like a date. Maybe if you pretended it was for a special occasion instead. Like his birthday. That's what you'll do. Great plan, Xig. Just act like it's a birthday dinner. Damn, you're a genius."

So he strolled on down the stairs with all the composure in the world on his shoulders and everything was going smoothly until he reached the bottom of the stairs, saw Luxord, and promptly said, "Happy birthday, man!"

…_**Fuck**__, you're an __**idiot**__._

His mother looked at him like he'd completely lost his mind—though that might have been more because of Xig's choice of shoes rather than his birthday comment—and Luxord just burst into laughter. He probably thought it was some sort of sick joke. _That bastard. He would think that._

"Classic," was all Luxord said. The two stood around awkwardly for a moment, and during that moment Xigbar was struck with the sudden fear that his mother knew absolutely everything that was going on and was about to open a can of man-on-man sex-talk on him. All fears, however, were instantly assuaged as his mother said a very simple and very cheerful goodbye to the both of them before heading back to the kitchen. It was, apparently, just that simple. Suddenly Xigbar found himself wishing that she really _did_ know what was going on. Maybe she could've stood a chance against stopping the insanity.

"So. Shall we go then?" Luxord asked him.

Or maybe not. Maybe it was inevitable. Maybe it was—dare Xigbar even think it—_fate_.

"I'm impressed," Luxord told him as Xigbar closed the door behind them. He hadn't expected it to be nearly as cold as it was and the chill hit him dead on, finding its way to his skin even through his bomber jacket. (Which Xigbar earned ten points for wearing—it, too, was brown.)

"What? You didn't think I'd have the balls to do this?" Xig went.

"No, I'm impressed that you dressed up. But now that you mention it, yes, I suppose you having balls is a bit of a surprise, too."

"Oh, go die somewhere. Let's get this over with." Xigbar sped-walk down the driveway, passing Luxord with ease and making for the Saab. Which he realized wasn't there. And when he realized what was there, he just about tore himself to pieces because he didn't know whether to pass out, throw things, or pitch a fit. He settled on pitching a fit.

"What. In the hell."

"You like it?" Luxord asked him.

"Where's the _SAAB_?!"

"…I take that as a no."

"_Christ_, what happened to you car?" Xigbar asked. He started walking in wild circles around the motorcycle like he was hoping that on the next round, the thing would suddenly spring into being a car with a triumphant laugh at his expense. But there was no such luck. For Xigbar, there never was. Luxord just shrugged and twirled the keys to the ignition around his finger. There was some random keychain with a grinning elephant on it attached, and that was new, too, Xigbar figured, but it wasn't anywhere near as upsetting as the cycle itself.

"I traded it in for a motorcycle!" Luxord looked quite pleased with his stating the obvious and just grinned and grinned away. "Isn't it absolutely _brilliant_? Just look at it."

"I'm looking. I'm totally missing the appeal. How are we even supposed to _get_ anywhere on it, man?"

"Have helmet, will travel." And suddenly in Luxord's hands appeared two helmets, a black one and a red one and Xigbar could've sworn the boy was up to magic tricks or something because helmets don't just pop in and out of existence by means of their own free will. All such concerns were placed on the backburner, however, as Luxord seated himself on the motorcycle and patted the seat behind him expectantly.

Xigbar stared at the motorcycle. Then he stared at the helmet that had been shoved into his hands (he'd been given the black one, in case you were curious). And then he stared at the motorcycle again and helplessly started shaking his head as if there was really something he could do about it. "No way, dude. I don't do the backseat," he insisted.

"Sure you do."

"No. No I don't."

"Xig, you're wasting time. Our reservation is for 7:45 and it's already…" Luxord paused theatrically here and checked his watch. "And it's already quarter past. We need to head out."

"Then we're taking my car," Xigbar told him.

"I get better gas mileage."

"I get better odds of _living_ as long as we're in a metal box on wheels, thanks."

"Come on. I thought you had balls enough for this adventure."

"I have more balls than you, that's for sure."

"What, you have _three_ then? That's a little disturbing. I'm not sure I was ready for that information."

Xigbar shuddered even more violently than he had over his discussion about vaginas that afternoon with Kairi, and he wondered why the world had decided to pit itself so cruelly against him. He didn't kick puppies, he hadn't cheated on any tests since a fifth grade spelling one, and he even sometimes made an effort to be friendly to people. Again, _sometimes_. On a rare occasion. But still, that was no excuse for the all around shit day he was being dealt.

And to be accused of having three balls. That was just downright unnecessary.

"Move your stupid hand! I swear to God, if anyone sees me and I end up never living this down, I'm killing you the first stinking chance I get," Xigbar said, taking his seat grudgingly on the cycle.

"It's a date," Luxord told him.

"No it's not. It's not a date."

Xigbar crammed the helmet on, snagging a few poor hairs in the process and nearly bruising his collarbone as well. At least, he thought it was his collarbone. He wasn't entirely sure where the collarbone was, but he knew it was somewhere around the head and at that moment his entire head-region was just swimming in discomfort and unhappiness, so he figured he couldn't be too far from the truth.

"Hold on, okay?"

And he didn't hold on—swore he wouldn't hold on, no matter what—raging bat-monkeys descending from the sky couldn't make him hold on, he swore—but the second Luxord set the motorcycle to zooming down Xigbar's neighborhood streets, Xigbar realized that to _not_ hold on was to fall most horribly and ungracefully off the back of the motorcycle, which he almost did at least three times before he embedded his fingers in Luxord's jacket and didn't say anything other than, "I hate you for this."

"Oh, but you're loving it," Luxord assured him. All this was yelled over the hum of the engine and the roar of wind against their bodies and helmets, but the longer Xigbar sat behind Luxord, the more patience he began to develop for the whole thing. He would never in a million years admit to liking the experience of course (had he been the one driving and had a hot woman been clinging to his backside the whole time, things might have been different), but all in all it was far from the lowest point of Xigbar's day. The lowest point had probably been wishing Luxord happy birthday when it was not, in fact, his birthday. It couldn't get much lower than that, he figured, but at least he was on a motorcycle and not dead or embarrassed or suffering all that much.

The downtown district was still aglow with Christmas lights strung all through the stunted little pear trees that dotted the edge of the roads and the place was more alive that Xigbar could ever remember it being. The life of the place was enough to make him feel like he was on some natural high, and to be whizzing past so much life was enough to make him feel almost godlike, as though he were some sort of omnipotent being for which limits and other nonsensical things had no meaning. Of course, then came stoplights and traffic and the feeling lost some of its edge, but all the same, by the time they reached the restaurant, Xigbar was ready to do it again. Not that he would ever just up and say so, but Luxord could pretty much tell just from once glance at Xig's face, once both boys had done away with the helmets.

"You can't tell me that didn't feel amazing, now can you?" he asked Xigbar.

"…Okay. So I can _maybe_ see the appeal. Still. You're going to die," Xigbar told him quite truthfully. His mind was still flapping its arms and shouting, _"AGAIN, AGAIN!"_ but he ignored it to the absolute best of his ability.

"_Now_ why would I have reason to die? Nobody saw you."

"No, I mean… Ugh. You're gonna die on the stupid motorcycle, dingus." Xigbar just shook his head as if all this should've been perfectly clear to his friend, but his head stopped mid-shake when he looked up and saw where they were. His mouth fell open a little and then he snapped it shut, wheeling around to look at Luxord. "Dude. This isn't where we're eating, is it?"

"Sure is."

"No _way_ can we afford this."

"I'm going to pretend that statement's not mildly offensive in any way. And I'm also going to reassure you that we definitely, most certainly can."

"Maybe _you_."

"You're the wealthier of the two of us."

"I was also secretly hoping for, uh, _McDonald's_, maybe?"

They were far and away from a McDonald's. …Well, alright, they weren't really, as well over twelve thousand McDonald's dwelled within the country and there was bound to be at least one within walking distance of where they stood. But the place they were entering was in _itself_ and its very nature about as far away from McDonald's as physically possible. The columns supporting the structure on the inside were essentially very tall fishbowls and had live fish swimming around inside quite merrily, for starters. Not to mention the fact that almost everyone in there was dressed to the nines and well hydrated with bottle after bottle of pricey looking champagnes and chardonnays. It was hip. It was mod. It was slightly oozing of couture. And Xigbar wasn't too sure his ego could handle being in the same room as all these gorgeous people, and he was entirely right. His ego most certainly could _not_ handle it and he found himself feeling a bit like the algae sweater he'd left at home—ugly, out of style, and better of thrown in a corner or the nearest dumpster, where he could never see the light of day again.

He swore right then that the moment he got home, he would rescue said sweater and put it back in his closet. He might even wear it on weekends. When he was sick. And no one was home. Or alive. At all.

"It doesn't matter anyway. The check is mine," Luxord was saying. He at least looked like he was more suited to the place than Xigbar was. He'd taken off the tartan pea coat he'd been wearing and slung it over one arm, revealing perfectly fitted khakis and a narrow striped collared shirt held together by a slender pink tie that Xigbar figured it took one hell of a man to pull off—even if said man _was_ gay. Or whatever Luxord was. Even his facial hair looked nicer than it normally did, and Xigbar was about to ask Luxord why this was so—awkward questions be damned—before the host arrived and placed them at their table.

The tablecloth gleamed white, the silverware shone… well, silver, obviously. The faint hum of people around them wasn't too loud at all and it was terrifyingly evident to Xigbar right then that Luxord was damn good at picking locations for dates. He wondered how many girls had been to the same place with him—what kind of dent that had put in Luxord's bank account. That wouldn't just have been an awkward question to ask, however—it would've been flat out rude, so Xigbar left it unmentioned.

"Prett-y swank, if I do say so myself," Luxord said, gazing over the menu.

Xigbar hadn't even touched his. He was, to be brutally honest, a little terrified of getting his grimy fingerprints all over it. So instead of being a good patron and looking it over, he leaned across the table rather earnestly and hissed, "You're _insane_. What are we _doing_ here?"

"Enjoying the last calendar night of the year, of course, just like everybody else." Luxord hadn't looked up from the menu when he said it, but he rested his finger on a dish that looked interesting and then allowed himself to look up. Taking in Xigbar's poor, distressed face, Lux chuckled and said, "Look at it this way, Xiggy. This time tomorrow, you'll be able to write off everything the night holds as being so terribly last year it's not even important anymore."

"Wha… what does the night hold?" Xigbar asked warily.

"Obscure foreign foods that I'm going to pretend I know all about," Luxord told him. He dove back into the menu and Xig took it as his cue to do the same. The waiter arrived, their drinks were brought and in time their orders were placed and Xigbar still felt too awkward and too horrified that he was actually doing this—this _thing_ he swore he would never in a million years allow himself to do—in _public_, no less—with these _people_, no less—who were beautiful, unfair strangers and made him want to hit himself with something large and hard that would possibly knock him straight into oblivion.

And though Luxord wasn't really empathetic by any means, it doesn't take a great deal of depth to recognize a miserable face when you see one. Luxord put on a face of his own, one that said he wasn't the least bit worried of Xigbar having a bad time (he was, actually, quite worried about that) and he even reached an arm halfway across the table in a comforting gesture, but stopped himself from taking it further than that. He tapped his thumb against the surface a few times like that was what he'd meant to do to begin with, and just returned his arm to his side.

"You can relax," he said eventually, as nicely as he could. "You're off the death-mobile. And no one you know could possibly see us here." When this did nothing to reassure Xigbar, Luxord licked his lips and laughed it off while saying, "Besides, it's not like it's that odd for us to hang out anyway, right? We've only been doing it forever. So calm down."

Despite Luxord's words and all their good intentions, Xigbar went through almost the entire meal feeling like there was a very large, very rotten type of melon that had sprouted in his stomach and was slowly but surely shooting its vines up through his throat like so many ill-boding omens. He didn't know what could've caused it—the food was delicious, the best he'd ever had, and Luxord hadn't done anything out of the ordinary aside from looking across the table at Xig in a way that was distinctly, terrifyingly different from his usual looking-at-Xigbar look.

"They'll be having fireworks down at the park soon. You interested?" he asked.

"Sure. I mean… no celebration is complete without blowing shit up, right?"

"Exactly my point," Luxord said with a grin. The check arrived and his hand was lightning quick in picking the thing up before Xigbar could even begin to think of it. Still, it couldn't hurt to ask.

"Can I pay for some of it?" Xig offered.

"Not a chance," Luxord told him cheerfully. And with the bill paid and jackets donned, both boys headed back out into the night.

The park where the fireworks were being held was only a few blocks down, and was less like a park and more like a random patch of grass and benches that was kind of puked onto the surface of the city from up above. That is to say, the park was crappy. Both Lux and Xig knew it was crappy, but no one cared about the park anyway because both of them liked explosives and both of them were already preoccupied within their own little heads.

Luxord lifted his arm a bit and Xigbar feared for the worst. What would he do if Luxord wanted to hold hands?! What could he say? And how could you reject someone who had just spent fifty dollars on your baked salmon alone? There were no words. There was no action. At least, nothing reliable and by the book. So Xig had to wing it.

"WHOA, look over there! A pigeon!" he exclaimed.

Luxord's raised arm continued on its way and led his hand to an itch behind his ear. Meanwhile, Luxord stared at Xig like he was a stark raving lunatic—but an interesting stark-raving lunatic at that.

"…Yes?" he went.

"Yeah, I, well, yanno. I. Never seen a, a uh, a pigeon out. I mean, never see a pigeon out after… after it gets dark. In the winter. In this part of town. On this street. Yanno." Xigbar sneezed right then and he could've cried with happiness because of it. He'd never been so grateful for a sneeze in his entire life.

"Are you cold?" Luxord asked him.

Xigbar waved his hands back and forth in front of him—what would he do if Luxord offered him his coat? How would he politely turn that down? How was it possible to be anywhere near polite enough to your gay best friend who just bought you an expensive dinner and now might expect something in return from you?

Quesitons were building up. Xigbar only had one answer: "No! No, no, I'm cool. I mean I'm fine. I'm hot, actually. Temperature… hot."

"Xig."

"Yeah?"

"Would you _please_ calm down? You're going to make yourself sick."

Xigbar's hand instinctively flew to cover up his salmon-filled tummy, which had been doing country line dances in his gut long before the salmon was even introduced to it. _Huh. Nerves make you queasy? For real?_ "Is that what that is?" he asked.

"Why the hell are you so nervous? It's just me!"

"It's a different you! You don't understand."

"How am I any different?"

"You, I dunno, the…" Xigbar was searching desperately for an example because he was certain that there were swarms of them to be had—it was just that he was having trouble finding one right at that moment. It didn't help that the look in Luxord's eyes was terribly distracting because it almost looked like Luxord was on the verge of tears. At the very least, his eyes were abnormally shiny and this bothered Xigbar to the extent that he just had to ask about it.

"Do you have something in your eye, man?" he went.

"Huh?"

"You've been looking like you're gonna bawl your eyes out all night."

Luxord opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. "…I got aftershave in my eye," he confessed.

"You use aftershave?"

"After shaving. Yes."

"You never smell like aftershave. What, like Old Spice or something? That old dude smell?"

"No, Burberry."

Xigbar nervously, cautiously, jerkily moved himself an inch or two forward and took a small whiff. Sure enough, there was a very pleasant, delightful, absolutely _awesome_ smell about Luxord that Xigbar couldn't ever remember being there before. "Huh, yeah. You never smell like that."

Luxord narrowed his eyes and Xigbar stared rather stupidly at him for a good long moment before Luxord made with the last half of his confession, grumping and grouching and grinding his hands into the depths of his coat pockets. "Okay, fine!" he said. "So I've never used aftershave before!"

"…But you're wearing it now."

"_Yes_, Xigbar."

"Are you allergic to it?" Xig asked. It seemed like a fair enough question. Luxord was still shiny-eyed, after all.

"_No_, Xigbar. I really did get some in my eye."

"Oh. Gotcha. Well that's pretty good to hear. Thought it was somethin' serious."

The two of them continued on their walk and Xigbar started making a conscious effort not to let every slight move of Luxord's arms send him into a panic. He was doing pretty well, all things considered. No more jumpy tummies, no more cold sweats, no more mental anguish pouring out of his ears and all over his jacket. Yes indeed, he was just sailing right on through this date and he was sure that once they reached the end of the night and Luxord realized that Xigbar was just as boring as he'd always feared, everything would go back to normal. All of this gay business would disappear into thin air and Xigbar and Luxord would go to college together and be friends for life. They would be each other's best men and their whiny little brats would grow up playing together while Xig and Lux made barbecue in the backyard on the grill while their wives would be… well, Xigbar wasn't quite sure where they'd be, but they would definitely be somewhere.

Xigbar was even on the verge of whistling cheerfully to himself now that he'd figured out the solution to his problem. He would've gone through with it, too, and started into a tune of Yankee Doodle had Luxord not looked up at him that very moment and said:

"Xigbar…" And then waited. Did the opening and closing of the mouth thing a few more times. Said, "Caaa…" Waited some more. Said, "Ah." And then pointed lamely in front of them and finally spat out: "'Nnnnnnylook, a… another… pigeon."

"Fuckin' ratbirds," Xig said.

"I actually rather like pigeons."

"_Why_?"

"They're pudgy, take shits on everything, and annoy the hell out of everyone who hates them. What's not to like?"

"…Uh. Everything?"

"Can I--?"

"You…?"

Luxord blinked and Xigbar was really starting to think the boy was allergic to that aftershave business, because his eyes looked about ready to burst as he mumbled, "Can I be just a moment? I, ah, I think I see someone I know from school. Just a second. I'll be right back. Just don't go anywhere."

They'd reached the park by then, of course, and Luxord shot off to disappear behind a tree. Maybe he had to go to the bathroom, Xig figured. …But if that was indeed the case, he doubted Luxord would be dumb enough to take a piss while all these people stood around waiting for fireworks. Xigbar joined their ranks for a few minutes, standing around stupidly and breathing hot air onto his hands to keep them warm and exchanging jokingly impatient glances with all those around him. Eventually that got painfully boring and he gave up on it entirely, heading over towards the tree where Luxord had disappeared.

Surprise, surprise, Luxord was still there and was very bad at disguising what he was really doing over there. Which was absolutely nothing, save leaning up against a tree and losing both himself and his thoughts somewhere in space.

"…Lux?"

"Xigbar! Sorry, I just… zoned out, I guess."

"…Where's the kid from your school?" Xigbar asked, even though he wasn't stupid and already pretty much knew the truth.

"There wasn't any kid," Luxord told him.

Xigbar and Luxord regarded each other quietly for a moment or two and Xigbar moved to stand next to Luxord, if only to get away from the growing crowd of people intent on watching the display. Nodding along to nothing in particular aside from the thoughts milling about his head, Xig hooked his thumbs into the belt loops of his pants and said, "Yannooo, if I'm that lame a date—which I am, it's pretty much been scientifically proven over the years 'n shit—you can always just dump me off at home..."

"You're not… You're not a bad date, I mean. I am."

"Why _you_? You wore aftershave."

Luxord looked at Xigbar like he was slightly hilarious, but then that looked changed completely, right before Xigbar's eyes. It went from being the same old hum-drum expression he'd seen for years on end, just about, and morphed into this strange, sappy, smitten thing that just about struck the fear of god in Xigbar where he stood, and if he'd had boots, he most certainly would've been shaking in them. As it was, he felt kind of jittery in his Adidas and wondered if Luxord could tell, and if so, what exactly his response would be.

"You look… handsome," Luxord said quietly. And then, apparently realizing what he'd just said, turned completely pink in the face and looked at the tops of the tree branches instead of Xigbar. "Sorry."

"Lux, listen, I…"

"Just watch."

They'd started lighting off the first fireworks—pretty little things exploding in the sky and shooting out greens and golds and blues and reds. Both Xigbar and Luxord knew that it was just a warm up for the big show that would start up around the countdown time and completely erupt as soon as midnight hit. And though Xigbar didn't want to push Luxord and though Luxord certainly didn't want to push Xigbar, a fair amount of things lay between them that, perhaps, should have been talked through. Both Lux and Xig, however, were of the unshakable mindset that such things were just better left unsaid, and Xigbar hoped that his… whatever-he-felt… came across strong and clear. Much in the same way that Luxord hope that his true feelings and persistence came across in the same way.

…None of these, I'll have you know, came across at _all_ and both boys remained completely in the dark as to what the other was thinking, and it was really quite a sad matter that could've been easily resolved had at least one of them had guts enough to speak up at that one instant in time. But that one instant in time quickly collapsed as soon as two completely new voices entered in on the scene, belonging to two completely new teenage girls who had sidled up alongside Xigbar and Luxord, obviously by plan. One of them was small and slender and had gorgeous red hair that fell around her head in waves, and her friend was taller with a slightly horsy face and blonde hair. The red head stood beside Lux and the blonde stood beside Xig.

"Hey, are you guys here by yourselves?" the red headed wonder asked.

Luxord shrugged and nodded. "Yeah."

"Mind if we join you? We don't have anybody to hang out with for the grand finale. _You_ know. When the clock strikes twelve and everything."

'_And everything,'_ Xigbar assumed, meant when everyone and their mother was supposed to give everyone else and their other mother a kiss for the new year. It was the most retarded tradition he'd ever heard of and he had almost half a mind to tell them so—probably would have, too, had Luxord not interjected, "Sure."

Xigbar stared openly and he felt his fist clench just ever so slightly and wished to hell and back that it hadn't.

"The more the merrier, right, Xig?" Lux asked him. And Xigbar, not really having any other options spread out before him, just nodded dumbly and proceeded to feel absolutely god-awful for the next half hour they all stood under smoke and fireworks, making themselves a mess of sore necks and frigid limbs. The horse-faced blonde girl kept trying to scoot closer to him—probably just for warmth, Xig figured—and there wasn't a chance in _hell_ that he missed Luxord's little redhead brushing her hand against his ass. Xigbar would've punched her face in, were he not the picturesque gentleman he was. …And he wasn't, really, but he doubted that Luxord would take too well to fist-throwings and knockdowns come the stroke of midnight.

So Xigbar did as he always had. He grinned (without really grinning, mind you) and made as though to bear it all through the night. It was just like all those double dates Luxord had ever dragged him on. Just like all those times anywhere with women fawning all over Lux, all over his perfectly kempt body, all over his stunning accent and brilliant eyes and fuck if Xigbar didn't want to just rip off his own clothes and run around screaming in the nude with the unfairness of it all. The idea had this rare kind of appeal to it, and before he knew what he was even doing, Xigbar felt a little chuckle bubble up from his throat.

It was a sound that really should've been smothered out by all the racket around them. The countdown had started the second Xigbar had laughed, but the feel of it was picked up by the blonde chick, now close up against his side, and she looked up at him and asked loudly, obnoxiously and almost irritably: "What's so funny?"

"_Nine_!" the people shouted.

Xigbar looked down at her.

"_Eight_!"

"Nothing!" he hollered back, but was cut off because he started laughing again and just couldn't help himself for anything. He must have been going completely insane.

"_Seven_!"

Luxord looked over at the commotion and saw Xigbar in near hysterics with laugher and saw the blonde girl looking like she could've bolted for all the sheer insanity rolling off Xig in delighted waves by that point.

"_Six_!"

And Luxord, in spite of himself, started to laugh, too, the very second he caught sight of Xig's eyes. It had never happened before and it would never happen after, but in that one brief meeting of blue and gold, each knew precisely what the other was thinking and it couldn't have been anything other than priceless and funny and uniquely their own.

"_Five! …Four! …Three! …Two!"_

"Xig—" Suddenly Luxord's mouth was right beside his ear and all laughter stopped—all sound and movement stopped for the smallest fraction of a second. The feeling Xig had been carrying around his stomach all evening bubbled up into a reeling, mind-numbing frenzy and Xigbar couldn't have been more grateful for the crown and racket around them that covered up the sound of his strangled gaspy whimper. One half of his brain was screaming something that sounded eerily similar to,_ "OH JESUS, NO!" _whereas the other half was perfectly at ease, perfectly relaxed like coasting downriver in an inner tube on a summer day.

And then Luxord's other word registered in Xig's brain and his first reaction died out, too.

"_ONE_!"

"_Duck_," Lux said. And Xigbar did.

"_Happy New Yeeear!"_

Both girls wheeled to the side where Luxord and Xigbar had stood just moments before. They held their lips puckered and their eyes shut and their arms lax and waited for a split second before leaning in, before losing their balance entirely, and before falling face-first right into one another and landing in a tangled, squealing heap on the ground. Upon looking up, neither of them could spy either of their two disappearing boys, and whatever sadness they might have felt was ruled out by the sheer indignity of the entire situation. Some things, they thought, were just so stupidly, rottenly unfair it was just horrible. Just absolutely _horrible_. And boys were just _horribly_ mean.

Meanwhile, Luxord and Xigbar were sprinting down the empty streets and nearly falling over themselves with laughter because they couldn't have timed the entire thing more perfectly even if they'd actually tried at it. They slowed to a walk after turning down the block they'd come through, passing pigeons along the way, rattled, startled little creatures they were from all the noise coming from the park. Luxord didn't have to say that what they'd just done was absolutely brilliant because it was just one of those things so perfect, so cleanly done, so utterly right in its accomplishment that it _really could_ go without saying. What did not go without saying, however, were the words he then spoke through a break in the laughter.

"Do you want some chapstick?"

Xigbar, kind of blown away by the randomness of the question, promptly snapped his head around to face Luxord down with a _What-the-heck-was-that_ kind of expression that only really succeeded in distracting him long enough from where he was going to put a strategically placed pothole in the road. The result was a face-plant similar to Roxas' from months and months back, only not quite on the same epic scale, seeing as his was not in a high school parking lot, but rather in some empty, dark street where the only witness was a boy who'd seen far worse from Xig in all the days they'd known each other.

"Buh. What was that?" Xig asked from the ground.

"I said do you want some chapstick?"

Xigbar blinked, reached a hand up to feel his lips, and discovered that they were, indeed, quite chapped. So he nodded rather dumbly and just went completely blank in the brains when Luxord descended from above like some dark and evil predator (empty streets will distort almost any image) and proceeded to place his mouth gingerly against Xigbar's. …If it means anything, Luxord must have planned it all along, because he was wearing Chapstick to start with and now Xigbar was, too, so everything worked out flawlessly. Flawlessly—except for the fact that Xigbar keeled over, hit his head on the pavement, and blacked out for about three seconds before coming right back around, just about good as new. When he opened his eyes again, Luxord was freaking out and Xigbar was reasonably sure—even through his clocked and scrambled head—that whatever substance was forming up in Luxord's eyes was no longer a byproduct of a Burberry misadventure.

"Jesus, Xigbar! What happened?" Luxord asked him, his voice so dangerously close to hysteria that Xigbar actually started laughing quite moronically.

"IIIII dunno," he said.

"You fainted!"

"Yeeep."

"You… you fucking fainted!"

"Yeah. About that. Oww."

"Oh sweet _Jesus_, you fainted!"

The way Luxord kept saying that part of it over and over again—_you fainted, you fainted, you fainted_—Xigbar was almost willing to believe that it was something serious, but seeing as he was a teenage boy who still fairly certain that he was perfectly invincible and that flaming, poisonous, angry pikes from hell couldn't do him harm, he just shook his head and felt giddy when the whole world started to spin. "It was more like… a very poorly planned fall," he told Luxord.

Obviously it didn't have the intended effect, because at that moment Luxord just dropped his head into his hands and said, "I hate myself," very plan and simple like. Xigbar awkwardly jiggled himself up into a half sitting position, most of his weight resting on one scabbed elbow as he reached up to pat Luxord's shoulder stupid and ineffectively.

"There, there," he said, still unable to tell his foot from his ass, apparently.

"You fainted."

"Weee know."

"Are you alright?"

"I'm sure I _will_ be."

"You're not… upset," Luxord observed.

"Nah. Gimme, a while. Then I'll get upset on your ass." Xigbar was fairly sure he would, too, and it would happen about three minutes or so after he grabbed hold of Luxord and danced in merry circles with him, because since his vision was still kind of off, he figured that would just be a hilariously fun and appropriate sort of thing to do while he could rely on a concussion as the root cause of it all.

"I really am sorry," Luxord said quietly.

"Are you?" Xigbar didn't mean to sound like a jackass, truly, but as far as he could tell, Luxord hadn't made off too poorly from the evening, so Xig didn't quite understand what there possibly was for Lux to genuinely be sorry about. He had the sneaking suspicion that the boy was just lying. Which, in fact, he partially was.

"In… a way, I guess. But… not completely, you're right," Luxord confessed. He sighed, looked up from where he'd been holding his head for the past fifteen minutes, and almost managed to fix Xigbar with that strange, sappy look again but he stopped himself. Xigbar considered thanking him, but fortunately realized how awkward that would have been. Instead he stayed silent and Luxord turned away again, saying, "You just don't know how long I've waited to do that."

"Pull the practical chapstick joke?" Xigbar asked him. "Yeah, that was a good one."

"That's not what I mean."

"I know what you mean."

"Can I do it again then?"

"What, are you not gonna give in until I've got a cardiac arrest goin' for me, too?"

"I'm sorry… This is all my fault."

By this point, Xigbar was starting to feel at one with his body again and the world had slowed to its sluggish, boring pace around him. On top of that, he had a killer headache and was pretty sure he'd have a lump the size of an egg on the side of his head when he woke up in the morning. So he had no patience for sorrow and no room for sympathy and he just went, "Oh shut up. Guilt-tripping ain't even sexy anymore," as though at one point it had been sexy.

And if, at one point, guilt-tripping had been sexy, then that would've meant that Luxord, at some point in the grand time-space scheme of things, might have possibly appeared sexy to Xigbar. This made Luxord feel loads better—so much so that stretched and smiled and nodded his head a couple of times just to spread the good feeling all around through his brain, making sure it was good and distributed before he spoke again.

"Alright. So. Do you need me to carry you?"

"As if you _could_," Xigbar said with a laugh.

"I could help, at least."

"Nah, let's just sit a while. It's what we're good at."

They _were_ good at it, too. They always had been, the more they thought about it, and being good at just sitting was one of those gifts that only grew with age, so each of them took some comfort in the fact that they would always have at least one talent to fall back on in life. If one couldn't have skill enough to sit in a spot and do nothing and be _okay_ with doing nothing, what, then, could a person possibly be capable of doing at all? Doing nothing was the most basic, fundamental skill of all, and yet for kids of Xigbar and Luxord's age at their point in time, it was a skill too easily dismissed as laziness, carelessness, lethargy… The list went on.

The stars couldn't be seen too well that night because of all the smoke hanging in the air from sparklers and fireworks alike, but neither boy cared. The breath that came from their mouths drifted up and around them and Luxord burrowed deeper into his jacket. Xigbar looked sideways at him and grinned.

"Cold, huh?" he went. Luxord just laughed, returned the grin, and then pulled out the hat Xigbar had given him for Christmas, which had been stowed away in his pocket the whole time. Xigbar hadn't even noticed, but he couldn't help but burst out into a new fit of laughter when Luxord actually went and put the hideous thing on his head.

"_Now_ I'm set," Luxord told him quite proudly.

"Well, I hate to break it to you, but your bracelet doesn't do jack shit for the body temperature." Xigbar extended his arm and his sleeve rode up just so Luxord's little bracelet dangled outside it. Luxord was either pleasantly surprised or flat-out shocked, but regardless of whatever it was, there was a moment of silence between them before Luxord snaked his arm over Xigbar's shoulder and pulled himself closer to the taller of the two of them. Xig said nothing because it fixed his problem—he was warm then, and didn't dare let his mind think it was for any other reason than simple, basic human body heat. He didn't say anything, no, and they sat like that for quite some time, until Xigbar started nodding off and Luxord suggested they head home before someone mistook them for homeless bums on the side of the street.

Xigbar nodded and nodded off to sleep yet again, completely missing the very slight, very soft, very cautious kiss that Luxord placed on the side of his head. And then Luxord really woke up with a few good shakes to his shoulder and they headed home.

(x) (x) (x)

This chapter was so much fun to write. I can't believe I'm already nine chapters into this thing. No, it hasn't been one of my more popular fics, but then again, the pairing's pretty obscure and the writing's pretty long-winded, so it's done alright for itself with all the thanks to you reviewers and supporters. Thanks, as always! My guess is that there'll be about six more chapters, tops—it depends on how quickly I can move things along. In the meantime: keep living your summer! Go outside and play! Buy one of those sweet little Schwinn cruisers for yourself. Damn, I _love_ those things.


	10. The Second Coming of Luxord

**How To Do Nothing At All**

'The Second Coming of Luxord'

Xigbar woke up the next morning in much the same fashion he woke up every morning. There was a brief interval between the time in which he came stumbling on into consciousness and the time in which he actually got around to opening his eyes. During this interval, he recounted the previous night's events in fast-forward motion, with little characters zinging around his brain, much as they did in old black and white films that had little to no plot, poor dialogue, and a pitiful music score. Such, he figured, was his life these days. As if on cue to a pitiful score request, his cell phone let out a few chirpy chimes of 'The Man That Got Away,' thereby alerting Xigbar to both an incoming call and a desperate and growing need for a better ring tone.

Of course, the very second he hit flipped open the phone and grumbled a greeting, he realized he would've gladly traded the incoming talk for more of Judy's thin, high voice.

"Goooood morning!" Kairi said.

Xigbar rolled onto his side, blinking his eyes a few times before coming into focus on his bedside table and the clock it held. "It's eight," he told her.

"I know! Happy new year!"

"It's eight in the morning."

"How was your date last night?" Kairi was clearly missing the point that eight o' clock was an ungodly hour for calling on anyone. Especially Xigbar, who had very little patience for the girl to begin with, especially after last night's betrayal. So he could hardly be held accountable for his thumb slipping suddenly over the END button and then slipping on up to the top of his phone and shutting the sucker without another word. In some backwoods corner of his brain, he justified these curious muscle spasms of his hand with being sleep-deprived and it sounded like a mildly educated conclusion to reach.

Three seconds later, as Xigbar was more or less patting himself on the back for his own cleverness, Judy took to singing again, and three seconds was all it took for Xigbar to fail miserably in his fist fight with his bastard of a conscience. He opened the phone again and didn't have to say anything this time—

"You hung up on me."

"Yes."

"So it didn't go so well?"

"Define… _well_."

"Did you have fun?"

_**Did**__ I have fun? _Xigbar thought about this. And he thought about it some more, and when he was done thinking he thought about it a bit more still just for a good measure. All things considered, the answer had to be yes. He'd been fed, watered, walked around town—hell, he'd even gotten to watch things explode and he had even, _even_ gotten to play pranks on unsuspecting, moronic women. That evening couldn't be anything other than what it was, and that was a raging success, for the most part at least. If you factored out surprise gay kisses and brain-bashing on midnight asphalt, of course.

But Kairi hadn't asked him if it was a _scarring_ experience (which it most certainly was—don't kid yourself.) She had simply asked if he'd had fun. Xigbar smiled. "Well. Damn, if that's your only standard," he said.

"So you _did_. Wow. Even though you broke the news to him?" she went.

Xigbar was poking Virtue's nose with his big toe, so Kairi had to repeat her last sentence to get his attention. Virtue then started gnawing on said toe and Xigbar decided this was a terrible game to play with one's cat and Kairi asked her question a third time, yet again, and Xig just said, "What news?"

"…The news that you're not _gay, _Xigbar."

"Oh. Yeah. That news." Xigbar tried to scroll through the night's events and find a time in which he could've just slid that little piece of information on in there with little to no awkwardness whatsoever. It was a time that seemed nonexistent, the more he thought about it. You just don't tell a person who spent upwards of a hundred dollars on your date that they're not your type. 'Your type' being the type with boobs and sans penis. Xig cleared his throat. "Well, yeah, I mean, we didn't, like, yanno. **Do** anything. We ate food and watched fireworks—it's kinda the New Year's tradition, straight, gay, or amphibian—whatever it is you may be, that's kinda just what you do, man."

"…So you didn't talk to him," Kairi said.

"I talked to the guy all freakin' night! What is it you _want_, woman?"

"Are you leading him on?"

"I don't even know what the hell that even means."

"I mean, like, are you pretending to be something you're not? Like, are you letting him go on liking you just so you can have someone to like you? Because that's not even… I mean, that's not even _respectable_. I mean, that's just… that's _terrible_. If that's what it is, there's just, there—well, there's no real _excuse_ for it."

Xigbar flapped his gums around for a few seconds, trying to comprehend that Kairi—sweet little dumb-as-bricks Kairi had just insulted him like that. And he replayed her words in his mind and started getting the vibe she wasn't kidding and that she might _not_ be dumb as bricks (titanium alloy, perhaps, but not bricks) and he waited on the line for her to laugh and be kidding and the laugh never came, so he _really_ started to get the vibe she wasn't kidding and that she might have a bit of a point. And then like a light going on in slow-mo, it dawned on him. _This girl thinks I'm the scum of the earth._

"I'm not leading him on," he insisted lamely into his phone.

"_Are_ you gay or aren't you?"

"You are worse than any mother I've ever had in any life! And I don't even fucking _believe_ in living multiple lives, but you make it seem possible because there's no other logical way I could've built up enough bad karma to deserve knowing you. _Why do you __**care**__?_"

"Because I know what it's _like_ to be led on." Kairi's words were like the proverbial dose of medicine—the damn-near-literal glass of cold water to a tired and sleeping face. Xigbar could've kicked himself had he been just two inches closer to the edge of true, unbridled guilt. As it was, he toed the line and surveyed the other side and decided he was just fine and dandy where he stood. But still. He did feel a little bad, especially seeing as Kairi had gushed all over him about what a decent human being he was the last time he saw her. Nothing makes for a shit feeling like a dumpload of disappointment.

"Sorry. Forgot that. Tactless," he muttered. Axel's face popped into his head and he wondered what Kairi had ever seen in that twerp to begin with. His face was pointy, Xigbar thought. Too pointy. Like a battle-axe skull.

He might has taken the opportunity to ease her pain and point this out, but at that very moment Kairi took on a tone that struck a familiar chord in the very deep pit of his stomach. It was the voice his mother used when trying to have a serious discussion with him, and years of training had forced him into silent submission whenever said tone came about.

"Xigbar… I'm not trying to be mean," Kairi said. "I know you probably don't feel like I have any clue what I'm talking about because I'm younger than you and I see things through some—some frilly, foofy, feminine vision where everything is made alright in the light of romance. …Well, I don't. Just… so you know. It's not okay to do that to people."

"He led me on first! He made me think we were friends. For _years_, he did that. I mean, _hell_, Kairi, if you _wanna_ get on someone's case—"

"I'm not talking about getting on anybody's case and I'm not talking about getting even with him for whatever wrong you think he did to you. I'm talking about being nice, Xigbar."

The response seemed so obvious, he could've flat out laughed in her face had she been remotely present. "I'm _not_ nice," he told her simply.

And the silence that followed this simple statement was full and flat enough to tell him that he'd done absolutely everything wrong. He knew nothing about handling women and women knew nothing about handling him—this much was becoming clearer every day. When Kairi finally did speak, he at least expected her icy tone and sharp words—"Well I kind of figured that one out, thanks. Remind me not to call you again. I don't like mean people, and I definitely don't like talking to them, either." At least it wasn't a surprise then. At least it didn't catch him off guard. It just made him feel doubly shitty, and he felt he probably deserved it.

Kairi's dial tone did its job of screaming in Xig's ear and kicking his ego in the balls, and proceeded to keep up this job until Xig mustered up the nerve to flip his cell phone shut once more. "All women are idiots," he declared, and for once it looked like Virtue agreed with him, especially in wake of the voice that suddenly came bounding up the stairs, around the hall, and through the cracked opening in his bedroom door.

"Xigbar! Time for your surgery! We don't want to be late!"

In light of the previous night's events, Xigbar's cosmetic prospects had been completely forgotten. He'd been up until nearly four in the morning replaying the events that led up to and followed the dreaded evening's kiss and each and every time the replay seemed to go a little differently. Luxord's hand seemed to move closer or feel warmer, the girls by the trees looked uglier or taller, the fireworks looked brighter and hotter and closer and stranger than any fireworks should rightly look. And Xigbar couldn't figure out if he'd really just hit the pavement _that hard_ or if it was he himself tweaking events. Once he was back on that train of thought, there was little that could be done to steer him away from it, and so his mother bustled on into his room rambling some obscure nonsense and rifling through his clothes like a closet master, throwing them onto his bed and chirping one last command before closing the door behind her.

Xigbar's brain finally caught up with him. _"Time for your surgery!"_ Xigbar dumbly fumbled into his clothes and then down the steps, where his mother was already waiting with her face aglow and with a pride and pleasure Xig couldn't understand. Pulling on his jacket he muttered things like, "Who the hell even says that? Time for your surgery? Like it's lunchtime or something," all the while playing out Luxord's face as he pulled away from him last night, contentment and sheer joy ablaze in blue eyes. If Xigbar didn't start watching himself, he'd puke from the cute of it.

"Xigbar!" his mother yapped.

"Save me, cat," Xigbar said to Virtue, who had followed him to the bottom of the stairs, ever faithful creature of man that he was.

"Mrow," Virtue replied, remaining ever faithful but still ever useless.

"We don't want to be late, sweetie! Out and out we go! Come on now! Don't forget your mittens—it's cold, cold, cold!"

x x x

Axel had been doing an abnormal amount of thinking as of late—that much he was dead sure of—and what was more was that he was also fairly dead sure of the fact that such a level of thought couldn't be anything but unhealthy for him. But thinking was tragically unavoidable all the same. He didn't know how he managed to get on like he did without a thought so often, for now it seemed as though every time he so much as closed his eyes to blink, another question arose from the woodwork of his mind to clobber him upside the head, a blatant reminder of stupidity and ignorance and other various undesirable traits of his. The questions were big ones. Important ones.

Where did he stand with Roxas now? What was safe with that kid and what wasn't?

Was Demyx to be held personally responsible for the whole mess? Possibly. In fact, just as Axel was certain that thinking was a filthy, nasty habit that people bought in to in order to look good, he was also certain that Demyx wasn't much interested in men. Or women for that matter. In fact, if Demyx had a sexual preference, it may have leaned less towards humans in general and more towards dusty old LP's lurking in the back of old thrift stores. Decidedly unfortunate for Roxas, but Axel saw some hope in the situation for himself and he was almost content to live with just that. _Almost_ being the key word there.

Then there was the whole mess with Kairi… All emotionality aside, who would Axel copy from _now_ without Kairi's constant attention and adoration? He would be doomed to fail class entirely, most likely held back another year. Eventually Roxas was bound to catch up to him and then there would be no escape. The kid would never let him live it down and he would be driven to insanity—possibly suicide. His epitaph would read: "Here lies Axel. He never amounted to much, but we'll pray every day that he might amount to something in hell."

Clearly Axel was a shining example of optimism in a sea of unavoidable despair and angst.

Which is _precisely_ why that particular day was of no concern to him. He had been milling around the neighborhood originally sent out by his mother to pick up half a gallon of one percent and a loaf of bread, both of which he'd forgotten in his tour of the town, and somehow he'd ended up in front of Xigbar's house. The sudden hunger he felt for a game of Halo was almost too much, and if there was one thing Xig was good for, Axel knew, it was for blowing up virtual shit.

Xigbar's house still had Christmas lights clinging to the porch rail and looped around the bush and leaping over the doorway and across the garage, but they stood lame and unlit in the grey afternoon sky, which smelled of more heavy snow and cold to come. Pressing the doorbell once, Axel watched his breath fog up around him and wondered for the thousandth time at least why he couldn't have been born a dragon with real smoke jetting from his mouth all the time. It was a true and honest misfortune and he would never forgive God for it and that, he knew, was why he was going to hell. Because God hadn't made him a dragon and he'd never get over it.

Kurt answered the door, quite evidently savoring his day off work in a flannel robe and fleecy slippers, still holding the TV remote in one hand while he fixed Axel with the standard expression he usually had on reserve for Axel and Axel alone. Mostly his expression was trained on Axel's hair, whose neon red spikes never seemed to make a wit of sense to poor Kurt.

"Heya, Xigbar in?" Axel finally asked him after standing around, waiting to be greeted, and then discovering that said greeting wouldn't come without some definite prodding.

Kurt blinked three whole times and shook his head, smiling choppily, awkwardly. "Oh, not today, Axel. He probably won't be out and about until you all start up with school again. That's in a week or so, right?"

"Uh. Yeah. He get the chicken pox or something? Strep? Mono?"

"He didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"He's getting surgery."

Axel knew of many kinds of surgery, for if there was one thing Axel was, it was a knowledgeable gent, and such gents knew a great many things about surgery. But for some damned awful reason, the first image of surgery to leap out from the depths of his mind consisted of a transgender operation gone severely awry, rather like _Hedwig and the Angry Inch_ sprung to life, only infinitely worse because Xigbar would never become a fabulous transgender rock star—ever—_never_—so long as man breathed oxygen and walked on earth. All the same, picturing Xigbar in a corset on an operating table sent shivers (and not the good kind, either) down Axel's spine.

"What kind of surgery exactly?" he asked hesitantly.

"I—just—well—surgery! I don't know!"

"You know, Kurt. Oh, you _know_." Kurt clearly didn't know and his mouth hanging open more or less conveyed this. And so Axel elaborated in his polished and plain manner: "He's still gonna be a dude, right?"

"Wha—of course!"

"_Of course_, of course, or are you just sayin' of course?"

"It's not that kind of surgery!"

"Mm." Axel and Kurt regarded each other with the most opposite of stares—Axel was waiting for Kurt to stand aside and let him in, though what exactly it was he would do once he was in, he hadn't quite figured out. Kurt, on the other hand, was trying to figure out how to properly coordinate his face into a mixture of _"Everything about you disturbs my Midwest sensibilities" _and _"I'm really quite busy right now"_ as well as _"I have no idea how to deal with you, so you could save us both some trouble and just leave right now and that'd be just wonderful."_

Axel didn't quite get the message—none of the million of them flitting across Kurt's face—but he did get tired of standing around outside like a lunatic, and so he bade Xigbar's stepfather farewell and turned to go. He walked a block or so, tried to remember why it was he didn't have a car, and then rummaged around in his pocket as a sort of afterthought, pulling out his cell and digging through the numbers and hitting a few wrong buttons before managing to get a few right ones.

"**YO**, Lux," he said to the phone.

"Axel?" the phone said back, in a rather Luxord-esque voice.

"Xig's not chopping off his dick, is he?" Axel asked him.

"…Not as far as I know? Why? What's going on?"

"Kurt's tellin' me he's getting' surgery."

"Fuck!"

_Ah_, Axel thought to himself, _that's what I was afraid of_. He couldn't understand why someone would want to cut off their dick, really. It was, all things considered, fairly handy to have around. Without his dick, Axel wasn't sure how he would get through life, and he was fairly certain that he and Xigbar couldn't be all _that_ different from one another, so how Xigbar would fair without, Axel couldn't be certain. The mere thought that he could be a hair's breath away from castrating his _own_ self damn near sent Axel into fits on the spot, but instead he just let out a full-body shiver that might have half-stemmed from the cold. Purging his mind off all dick-chopping thoughts, he then realized how quiet the line had gone. "Hullo?" he went. "Lux," he tried. "Yo, Lux."

There was nothing.

"Goddammit. No one ever tells me anything."

x x x

Once upon a time in a land some years old and living now only in the farthest, dustiest corner of Xigbar's mind, he'd gone to a slumber party for one of his elementary school friends. Whether because of his eye patch or his funny ears or his foolish tendency to hit the rack early, Xigbar somehow had become the target for a series of pranks, the worst of which revolved around rainbow Sharpie attacks to his poor, sleeping body. He'd awoken with stick figures and peeing dogs and dancing chickens drawn on his face, as well as the letters "P-I-N-U-S" written diagonally across his cheek, for no one at age seven apparently knew how to spell the word penis—or at least, no one among the seven-year-olds Xigbar kept company with at the time.

Since that miserable morning when his mother had picked him up from said slumber party with an utterly horrified expression marring her then quaint and reasonably endearing face—well, since that day, Xig had been pretty protective of his face. He didn't really like people touching its skin and the kisses Luxord had given him gave him the creepy crawlies, all gender aside. (It was largely a gender issue, he assured himself, but a certain degree of it was bound to be due to that facial-phobia-type-thing.) You can imagine, then, how Xigbar's stomach felt like it was pole-vaulting into a pit of raptors as two middle-aged nurses crowded around him with markers, poking and prodding and pulling at skin, examining his ears, drawing lines and dots every which way and all the while maintaining a decidedly dull conversation about townhouses between them, securely excluding Xigbar and thereby leaving him to ponder his discomfort further. One of them smelled like fruity tic-tacs and the other like a dead squirrel and the overall effect was so repulsive that his gag reflex felt like it was doing overtime. Every time he blinked, Luxord's eyes were staring right back at him.

It was, all things considered, the worst day of Xigbar's life. And it was only bound to get worse, he knew. But he did not know then just how much worse it would get.

The doctor—Doc Vexen—eventually came in and walked him through the process in the span of maybe a minute and a half. His bedside manner was decidedly lacking and his eyes had a very strange way of focusing on Xigbar as one would focus on a plate of steak and potatoes, but Xigbar tried to assure himself that Luxord had just scared him into believing everyone was gay. His mother had left him and planned on returning for him in several hours, but never in his life had he wanted her there more. There was a sinking feeling of something vaguely like regret, and it started in his stomach and spread rapidly, crisscrossing across his body and hit his brain with a frenzy. He was, he could be, and he might possibly be making a terrible mistake.

What if Lux was right? What if coming out of it all with a new face gave him a new attitude, a new self? What if his physical appearance really was so closely linked with his mental and emotional appearance? And what if, after all was said and done, Luxord didn't like the Xigbar that exited the hospital? But most importantly: Why in God's name was Xigbar worried about that?

He was so petrified by these last two thoughts that he completely forgot to voice his concern to Vexen, who had set his patient up in a gurney and had started wheeling him down the hall. His arms and legs were strapped securely in place and he'd never been more terrified—never had more reason to be terrified in all his life.

"Do you really have to strap me down?" he sort of squeaked, sort of mumbled.

"Protocol," said Vexen.

"…Are you sure you have to follow protocol?" asked Xig.

"That's why it's called protocol."

"…But what does protocol—what does protocol really _mean_ anyway, right?"

"It means we do it this way, period."

And then, like a sign from above:

"_**XIGBAR**_!"

There at the end of the hallway shone a beacon of light casting around a lone silhouette—Holy Father or lone ranger or both combined into one supremely super supernatural being. It was, in fact and as you may have guessed, only Luxord, but he looked so righteous and empowered that even the mighty Doc had to double take. And Xigbar, clearly moved by The Passion of The Luxord, could but utter three astonished syllables, which were:

"Jesus H."

"What do you think you're doing, you fatheaded dullard?" Luxord demanded of the doctor as he started down the hallway, doors slamming behind him with a thud that was nothing short of epic. "Are you trying to land yourself ears-deep in a lawsuit?"

"What was that?" asked Vexen, for Luxord was too far away for him to hear what it was he'd said quite properly.

And, "What was that?" asked Xigbar because he refused to believe he'd heard Luxord properly.

"Well, I can't say I'm surprised!" Upon closer inspection, Luxord no longer looked sent from heaven above, but rather furious and desperate all at once and very much from the turmoil of earth's surface. Those eyes Xigbar could so clearly remember as being filled with so much affection were now near boiling over with a strange fury and Xigbar didn't even want to look at him when he turned to face him. "I can't believe you'd stoop this low, Xig. For _shame_. Sir, I need to take him home."

"Why, exactly?"

Without skipping a beat, Luxord told the fattest, ugliest lie: "He's suicidal."

"I'm **what**?!"

"He's trying to kill himself, sir—I swear it—I do. I've seen him. I've even got a letter right here from him. A suicide note. He's allergic to… he's allergic to drugs."

"To _drugs_," repeated Doc Vexen, seeking revelation or maybe just clarification.

Luxord hadn't quite managed to recover from his brilliant lying stunt, nor had he quite planned out his whole course of action, apparently. A steady grumble started deep in his throat and rose up to become slow, awkward and confused words that made little sense to Luxord and even less sense to Xigbar.

"Ann—ann—he's allergic to anesthesia, you ass."

The doctor turned and screwed up his eyes staring so hard at Xigbar, who still had a map of a new face upon his old one. "_Are_ you?" the doc asked him.

"NO!" In spite of his little outburst, the thought then dawned on Xigbar that he wasn't so sure. The truth was, he'd never had anesthesia. For all he knew, he could've been allergic. But he had the distinct feeling that there was no way for Luxord, of all people, to know of Xig's hidden allergies without Xig himself knowing. He coughed. "I—I, well okay, I don't really know, but no! I'm not trying to kill myself."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Naturally, the second someone gets in your way… You'll do anything to put yourself out of your misery, won't you?" crowed Luxord. "Well I won't have it! Especially not when it'll weigh on the shoulders of this poor gentleman here!" Luxord flung his arm out quite beautifully, quite theatrically to his left, thumping Vexen in the chest and knocking the man's glasses off his nose and onto the ground. If Luxord cared, it was barely so—his face remained harsh and dead-set and all kinds of serious that Xig had never seen there before. "Xigbar, we're leaving this instant," Lux declared, taking hold of the gurney whilst Vexen still tried to find his lost specs. "We're getting you help. I mean it this time."

Luxord took two steps forward, pushing a shocked Xigbar along in front of him, and then appeared to have a sudden sympathetic stroke for the man on the ground. He stooped, picked up Vexen's glasses, and put them back in his searching hand. Once Vexen could see again, Luxord gave him a startlingly sharp salute, said, "Thank you, good doctor. You have saved a mighty, mighty life today," and turned to go.

"What're you doing?! You can't let him take me away!" Xig howled. "I'm not fuckin' _suicidal_, dammit! Doc! What're you doing, man?" But no one cared. Xigbar tried hollering a few more times, but all he succeeded in doing was making himself look like a mental patient rather than a poor, pathetic boy who had just been robbed of his only shot at being remotely handsome. Life hated Xigbar. The feeling was mutual. And Xigbar was only made more aware of this fact as Luxord pushed the gurney out and into the frigid winter air, banging against the door and nearly giving Xigbar a concussion on the way by. That would be the second time in the past twenty-four hours, Xigbar thought rather loopily to himself, right before picturing half a dozen blue jays in a conga line.

Perhaps he was, indeed, very much allergic to drugs and Luxord was right after all.

And then Luxord went and started talking and Xigbar regained his senses and remembered why he hated his best friend right then. "It's a good thing they've strapped you down, Xigbar," Lux was saying. "Why, I imagine you wouldn't hesitate to take the nearest needle and jam it down your throat with… with toxins and… and contamination and God knows what else. Good help is what you need, that's right." And then, more to himself he said, "Fuck his hellhole. You don't need this, Xiggy."

Vexen burst from the door they'd just left and Luxord drew up to an abrupt halt that sent Xigbar's stomach halfway north and up his throat. His arms were riddled with goose bumps and he promptly bit his tongue as soon as the shivering and chattering got going and he couldn't help but wonder why Vexen had to stop them when they were outside. Couldn't he have done so before they hit the ice and wind and all around hideous outdoors? Couldn't he have been a responsible doctor-type-fellow _inside_? Where it was at least _warm_, if overpoweringly sterile?

"Now wait just a minute—his parents brought him in here," Vexen was saying. Luxord leaned confidently and possessively against the gurney like it was his old car, his baby Saab. "His parents need to be the one to check him out. This appointment's been made _weeks_ in advance and if they knew he was allergic to—"

"They didn't, sir. And they shouldn't have." Abandoning the gurney to stride menacingly over towards the doctor, Luxord seemed to grow taller with each and every step. "Look here. What are you, forty years old or so? Wouldn't look a day past thirty—don't ask me how I guessed. You went to Woodstock? You look like the Woodstock type. Listen, I know all about you and your drugs, so when I tell you that we've done some experimenting ourselves, well, I trust you'll know what I mean."

"…You mean to tell me you've been experimenting with anesthesia."

"Ever seen that movie _Blow_, with that Johnny Depp character in it? Well, all that has got absolutely _nothing_ on general anesthesia."

Vexen looked more intrigued than he plausibly should have. "…Oh really?"

"Yes. Really. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd best get him to a psychiatrist. Say goodbye, Xigbar." Luxord looked up at Vexen with what some would call a slightly manic grin and then said the word for Xigbar: "Goodbye!" And so it was that he began manhandling his supposed charge off the gurney, with no small protest from Xigbar, either.

"What the _hell're_ you doing?" he hollered. "You're an idiot! You're an asshole! What the _fuck_ are you doing?"

But no amount of cursing or flailing around could help Xig right then. The straps on the gurney had put both his legs to sleep and he was a hopeless dead weight for Luxord to fumble onto the back of his motorcycle. In fact, he was _such_ a hopeless deadweight that Luxord was driven to his knees on the asphalt three times before finally managing to heft the bulk of his friend up and onto the cycle in what seemed to be a moderately safe enough position to make do. He nodded triumphantly and Vexen stood by and watched—his mind lost somewhere in thoughts on general anesthesia —while Luxord's foot came out suddenly, sharply, victoriously kicking the gurney out of the way with a clatter.

It was quite the commanding role he played, and when he donned his motorcycle helmet, he was so caught up in the moment that he almost forgot to jam one on poor Xigbar's own head.

"What are you _doing_?" Xigbar asked again, right before he was muffled and silenced by the hard plastic around his face.

"Saving face," Luxord told him. "Yours, specifically. Look at me now, I'm so witty, it's remarkable." But the wit was all lost on Xigbar, who couldn't make out a word Luxord was saying between the (now numbering two) thick layers of head-protection between them.

"You're just fuckin' scared shitless 'cause you think I might look better than _you_, even, if I went through with it!" he shouted.

Xigbar's anger and rage and pent up angst were quite enough to be audible through the helmet this time. Luxord managed a hurt expression, a loud and offended, "Oh don't belittle me like that, Xiggy. Don't _even_," and then he promptly made with the ignition, forcing a shivering and thoroughly embittered Xigbar into submission as the pair rolled on away from the hospital.

Xig's utterance of "_You bastard_" was lost in the roar and hum of the engine.

Not so very far from Xigbar's house, Luxord's master plan grew a kink in it when he had to stop for gas. He half expected Xigbar—who had since regained the feeling in his legs—to make a bolt for it, and he was half right. When he turned back from swiping his debit through the machine, Xigbar was nowhere in sight. Not twenty seconds later, however, Luxord saw him rounding the bend from the gas station's Kwik Mart, upending a box of Nerds into his maw. Luxord was completely unaware of the doopy, dopey, dung-eating grin that stretched across his face right then.

But that was quickly shot to pieces when Xigbar chucked the now empty box into a nearby trashcan, crunched his mouthful of candy for several long and awkward moments, and finally said, "You know you're taking me back there, right? I mean, dude, great show of good intentions and whatever, but you're not stopping me."

"Actually, I think I already did stop you. From making the biggest and most painful mistake of your life." Luxord directed his rage at a better outlet: the pump before him, slamming the fuel dispenser back in its handle and scowling as the damn little machine pended the damn little transaction. Meanwhile, Xigbar kept talking.

"Lux, look, I know you're probably pretty keen on staying the most dashingly charming gent that ever was, but I don't really give a flying fuck. And I don't really give a flying fuck about this whole surgery shit, either, but Kurt—"

"I don't care what Kurt thinks or what your mom thinks or any of that! Is this really what you want, Xig?"

"I'm sick of always being your wingman."

"You're not my wingman! We're _partners_ in crime!"

"I'm your goddamn wingman. I've always **been** your goddamn wingman."

"You've never been _'my goddamn wingman'_, you goddamn _idiot_. You don't even know what a wingman is."

"And I'm not a fucking idiot, either."

"Would you stop bitching at me? I just did you a huge favor and all I get is your bitching."

"You sound like an uppity British black woman."

"And you sound racist, you self-mutilating pig. Christ!"

"Yeah, well fuck you. I'm going home. And I'm getting my car and going back there."

That was when Luxord damn near lost it and grabbed Xigbar by his coat collar, making to slam him into the side of his car before quickly realizing that he no longer had a car and that slamming him into the side of his cycle would be the beginnings of a very bad idea. All the same, he still had the other by the coat and so he made an awkward shuffling, dragging grunting maneuver that wound up with Xigbar being awkwardly pinned against the gas pump, pressing up against all the buttons on the keypad and making the poor machine more than a little confused.

What Luxord lacked in finesse, he tried to make up for with pure passion and drive when he hissed, "You don't get it, do you? **There is no competition between us!** There never _was_!"

"Yeah, because you wipe the floor with me when it comes to living," Xigbar grumbled. "Thanks. You slimy shit."

"That's not the case here at all. What am I saying—that's not a case _anywhere_—at any time, let alone _this_ one. I don't wipe the floor with you. Alright? I don't. And I don't intend to. I can't help who I am and you can't help who you are, and the sooner we can both get over this one stupid, _moot_ little point, the better off we'll be."

"What've _you_ got to get over?! _You've_ got everything great!"

"That's where you're not quite right, Xig. You're _smart_. Well, maybe not genius-smart, but you're far from stupid. Now don't go and look for ways to prove me wrong on it. Please. We've had this conversation thousands of times before. Don't be a dumbass now and make me regret saving you."

"FROM WHAT?! What the hell are you so damn sure you were saving me from?"

"From not being yourself anymore!" Xigbar's eyes were somewhere close to popping right out of his skull when Luxord closed the gap between them once more and placed both hands on Xig's face, causing a lurch in Xigbar's gut that he momentarily mistook for the beginnings of an upchuck. But nothing came out of his mouth except for a curious little noise caught somewhere between a grunt and a "Zur?" sound of confusion, and Luxord refused to back off. He said, "This is who you _are_, Xig, eyes and ears and face and all. And this is who I am, stubbornness and stupidity and gayness and all. So let's just shut up and deal with it because we aren't likely going to be able to change it any time soon. If I have to deal with _my_ character flaws—guess what? You have to do it, too."

The two of them stood there blinking at each other like dumbstruck owls at midnight and Xigbar wondered when Luxord was going to let go of his face while Luxord wondered why he hadn't let go of said face already. A single snowflake descended from the sky and fell on Luxord's nose, where it proceeded to melt, become a drop, and ever so slowly slide down and then fall away. Xigbar, who had been so transfixed by the wonders of nature (or something like them) that he completely lost track of his place in the time-space compendium, stopped caring whether he moved or not because somewhere in some otherwise vacant corner of his mind, he realized that he was warm. And several moments later, thinking back one what Luxord had just said—some intended-to-be-moving speech of acceptance and understanding—he realized it called for a response on his part.

And like a pro, he said it. "Being gay isn't a character flaw."

"Funny how you only think that when it's convenient for you," Luxord said, one eyebrow raised. More snow began to fall and with the pad of his gloved thumb, he wiped a few of the melting flake from Xigbar's face. Never mind that Xig stood a good three inches taller than the other—at that moment, he hadn't felt more like a child since he'd dressed up as Leonardo (the mutant turtle as opposed to the genius) for Halloween when he was ten. And though the record books don't care much about it, you ought to know that that year, Luxord went door to door dressed as Raphael. Turtle to turtle then, Luxord leaned in and, embarrassingly enough, lifted himself up on his toes just enough to touch his forehead to Xig's, and once it was there he said, "It terrifies me to think that I might lose you. That's what made me do it, Xiggy."

"I wouldn't fucking **die**."

"But some part of you would. Or it would change so… so damn much that it—it wouldn't be you anymore. See? You would just… You wouldn't understand what it's like to be you. And right now—the way you are now—you _do_ understand that. You know what it's like to not fit quite right, you know what it's like to stand in the back, and you know what it's like to, well, to just… bum around town with me. If you were different—if you came out 'normal'—you wouldn't be…" Luxord wavered here for a moment before forcing out the next words, agonizingly, awkwardly. "You wouldn't be mine anymore."

Xigbar snorted. "You're psychotic. I'm not yours, you idiot."

"I meant that you're my best friend, Xigbar. First and foremost—before all else. Don't act like you take it lightly because I know—I _know_ you don't."

"Well you're a dumbass, aren't you?" Never having been gifted at one-liners, that was the best Xigbar could come up with and he was determined to leave it at that. His head was filled with glorious images of him heading home, getting his car, getting the damn surgery, and emerging a stud from it all, after which he could start wiping floors with Luxord, for once. But be it out of some freak form of fate or something else entirely, Xigbar's feet landed on a thick patch of ice not ten feet away, and those feet then flew out from under him quite comically before his skull cracked against the pavement. "FUCK," was all he heard, including a sudden rush and humming sound between his ears, though whether it was he or Luxord or both who said it, he didn't know.

But there Luxord suddenly was, hovering over him, head lit up like a beacon against the winter sky and thinking back to that remarkable entrance into the hospital, Xigbar was sure—in that one dazed moment—that it had to be true. Luxord was undoubtedly a holy prophet from heaven and if he said Xigbar wasn't his wingman, then it was about damn time that Xigbar accepted that he wasn't his wingman.

And you and I both know perfectly well that Luxord was about as far from a prophet as one can get, but for Xigbar—who had just come within a hair of quite the concussion—this logic made perfect sense.

"Xigbar. What did you do that for?" was all he could make out of whatever it was Luxord was babbling.

"I DON'T KNOW, OKAY." Instantly, Xigbar regretted the yelling, which made his head feel like it really had split wide open. Palms to forehead, Xigbar winced from the pain and grumbled and cursed and said, "Fuckin'… _hell_, man."

Before he could say which way was up, he was dimly aware of Luxord's arms around him, trying once more to move him from Point A to Point B, though with significantly more tender love and care than before. "Come on then," he was saying, and he said it again and if Xigbar hadn't been suffering from a near-concussion, he might have thought to wonder at the gentleness in Luxord's voice. Now in a sitting position, Xigbar blinked numbly at the hand Luxord presented him with, intended to help pull him up, but thoroughly ignored. Xigbar hadn't clocked himself on the head that hard—not hard enough to wipe away the heated discussion of only moments past.

"I'd rather walk myself, thanks," he said.

"You just brained yourself on ice. Not even _black_ ice, Xig. Just ice. Really, really visible ice."

"Then I'll wait to make sure I don't suffer brain trauma and _then_ I'll get up and _then_ I'll walk home."

"I'll wait with you," Luxord offered quickly, sitting down beside him on the pavement. Xigbar tried to shove him away but Luxord could not be budged. Xigbar, in a fit of defiance, moved to stand up and just walk away, but all it took was one more dizzy, slight slip on the ice for Luxord's hand to fly up and keep him from falling, though in doing so, said hand came to rest right on Xigbar's teetering ass. Neither of them, though they were both pink in the face, bothered to acknowledge it, though it only added fuel to whatever fire it was that had Xigbar so angry in the first place.

It probably had something to do with the new fact that Luxord was the only person to ever so much as touch Xigbar's ass. Ever.

"When are you gonna get the picture?! I don't want you here! I don't want you fucking with my life and I don't want you turning everything I _do_ into this shitty, crazy pile of adventures! Okay? It's _my_ life. It's not a fuckin' theme park for you to run around in."

Luxord looked genuinely hurt right then, in a way Xigbar couldn't recall him ever having looked before. His head was tilted off to one side so he looked just short of clueless, like he couldn't quite fathom what was going on or what Xigbar was getting at. "I never said it was…"

"Go away." Xigbar sighed. "Just go the fuck away."

"You're going to freeze to death." And then, when Xigbar didn't seem to be caving in anytime soon, Luxord stood up, too. The fact that he didn't slip at all on the ice was just another blow to Xig's ego. "Fine. Alright," he said. Luxord exhaled once, then again, still rooted to the spot. And Xigbar didn't dare move when Luxord leaned in, and touched his hand to Xig's face again. Both of them closed their eyes and only Xigbar instantly regretted it because when he opened them Luxord had pulled away and Xig couldn't for the life of him come up with some biting comment that made half a wit of sense.

"Call me. Please," Luxord whispered.

x x x

"_We are advancing constantly and we're not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy. We're going to hold onto him by the nose and we're going to kick him in the ass. We're going to kick the hell out of him all the time and we're going to go through him like crap through a goose!"_

_Patton_ was a good movie. When Xig had been a kid, he often fantasized and romanticized his adult life, which was basically a sexless existence of endless excitement, playing the ever-masculine war hero, and buddy-buddy adventures with Lux at his side. Occasionally such adventures would involve talking animals, and there was about a nine month period following his first exposure to _Babe_ in which Xigbar really, truly did believe that animals conversed in their own secret dialect that we humans remained perfectly oblivious to. If, he figured, he could befriend the right sort of animal in the right sort of way, he could pull a Dr. Doolittle and make history, after which he would make like Patton, form a terrific army and rouse them all to victory with manly speeches that used inappropriate words and politically incorrect jargon.

It was, as Luxord had once told him, an absolutely brilliant plan that, despite its brilliance, was doomed to failure.

"Xiggy…?" His mother pattered down the basement steps, her pointed face peering around the wall and into the room where Xigbar lay sprawled across the carpet all at an angle, eyes fixed to the army on screen.

"What."

"Are you alright, sweetie?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. …Do you want something, Ma?"

"…No. What about you?"

"No."

And then came the astoundingly awkward silence in which so much lay waiting to be said that no single item could be picked out and dealt with. They were all of equal importance and lay spread out before Xigbar's mother like so many different buttons on an endless grid. It had taken her years to master a computer keyboard. She wasn't sure she would ever be even remotely competent with the switchboard of her son's mental and emotional workings. It was a sad thing, just as it is a sad thing for all mothers to deal with. You have this beautiful baby boy and you think, for just so long, how amazingly perfect and loving he is and you take him fully and completely into your heart, despite all his flaws, because at the end of every day he is half of you, plain and simple. And then the boy reaches a certain point in his life—maybe as early as eight, perhaps closer to the age of thirteen—when it no longer serves him any well to love his mother openly as she does him.

Xigbar had been in that stage for years, blissfully unaware of the adoration and constant worry his mother poured all over him, even right then as she turned mutely and ascended the stairs once more.

Of course, as the teller of this backwards tale, I should make it clear that I by no means desire to make you the slightest bit unhappy. All mothers endure similar loving pains for their children, and if it is any consolation to you, dear reader, most normal children come full circle and grow up to openly and fully love their mothers once more. And while Xigbar was certainly a strange youth, he was not quite strange, nor nearly heartless enough, to ever lose the ability to love his mother. It was just that at that particular moment, the poor woman was on the backburner.

Several minutes later, there came an obnoxious scratching sound from above the TV, which—once Xigbar brought himself to detaching his eyes from the screen and looking six inches upwards—he discovered to be the sound of Virtue's pesky kitty teeth gnashing against the bracelet Luxord had given him. His tail lay curled around a half empty glass of water and the look he shot Xigbar was nothing short of mocking as he chewed, chewed, chewed away. Xigbar realized one of the many benefits of eventually investing in a flat screen television right then—it would have certainly made cat perching damn near impossible.

"Virtue get off the TV, wouldja?" he grumbled. But the cat continued to chew away and be it because of the noise or because of the presence of the bracelet in his mouth, Xigbar suddenly felt his blood boil and his temper draw near its absolute limit. The day was ridiculous. His one chance at anything bearing any sort of resemblance to handsomeness was send flying out the window by his gay, doting best friend whose probable trinket of affection was then caught up in the tiny jaws of the kitten they had shared—hell, rescued, practically, with the unbreakable friendship he'd thought they'd once had. Life was a cruel bitch, Xigbar realized.

"Cat. Get off."

Virtue continued to stare blankly at him, and after another few moments of this, he closed his eyes altogether, reveling in the simple heat of the television set. Xigbar clearly didn't speak cat—there was no hint of understanding in Virtue's reaction, and that simple lack of connection was the final straw. It was suddenly so frustrating for Xigbar that he didn't speak _cat_, so frustrating that he didn't speak _gay_, and so painfully, horribly, unbelievably frustrating that everything in his life was going twelve different, terrible directions at once that Xigbar was moved to do something drastic. He grabbed Kirk's leather moccasin slipper from the floor and he chucked that sucker at Virtue for all he was damn well worth.

Contact was made—"MREOW!"—and Xigbar felt a good two second's worth of adrenaline and accomplishment before it all came flying back at him in bits and pieces—the literal boomerang from hell. Virtue leapt to his feet in surprise, took one look at Xigbar, and proceeded to pee furiously all over the TV set. (If you thought the glass of water was going to be the culprit, you should probably be informed that the glass stood there just as harmless and immobile as ever.)

There was a moment's heavy silence of shock and awe before there came a crackle of electricity and the house went dark and silent.

From upstairs there came a vague and distant crash of pans and a very high-pitched squeal. And then from somewhere else in the house, Kirk's thick, masculine voice hollered out something that Xigbar didn't have the time or patience to make sense of. He just sat there in the dark, wondering where that damn cat had run off to, hoping the damn thing was still alive, and breathing in the stench of damn cat piss. And when he came around enough to his senses, only one word made itself clear and present in his brain-stage.

"…Fuck."

"XIGGY, WHAT WAS THAT?!"

The jingle of a collar nearby reassured Xigbar that the cat was, at the very least, still alive. Alive and no doubt lucky that the house was pitch black, for if he'd so much as been able to lay eyes on the little hairy bastard, Xigbar—he—well—he didn't know what he would have done.

As it was, what he did do was ignore his mother's question and fumble and bumble his way over towards the stairs, stepping on Luxord's bracelet along the way, letting out a curse, and then slowly but surely bending down to pick it up before making his way upstairs.

x x x

"Xigbar?" Was that a note of surprise in Luxord's voice, Xig wondered, or was it merely something akin to sheer terror?

"I was watching _Patton_ and the cat killed the TV," Xigbar said. Luxord nodded slowly as though it all made perfect sense. Grudgingly, Xigbar figured that Luxord was the only soul on Earth's good surface to whom that statement would make perfect sense. "Can I finish watching it over here?" he asked.

"Sure! Alright, yeah. I assume I can watch it, too?" asked Luxord, stepping aside from the open door to let Xigbar on in.

"Your house, isn't it?"

"True. But you _are_ very territorial. I wouldn't want you marking it with your scent and thinking it was yours."

"Har, har, har. You're the wittiest son of a bitch I know."

Inside it was abnormally dark and abnormally quiet. Marluxia's Jag was missing from the front drive, Xig had noticed, but unless Larxene had gone with him, which seemed doubtful—they were the only married couple Xigbar knew who curiously never drove in the same car—she was still lurking around somewhere. Which might account for the dark silence. Perhaps both she and Luxord were knee deep in self-pity over something, though that too seemed doubtful. They never saw eye to eye on anything. Xig tapped his shoes on the doormat, shaking off snow. He wondered how long they could skirt around the mammoth-elephant taking up all the air in the room and threatening to stomp on their puny human bones at any given second.

The solution, it seemed, was to simply vacate said room. He and Luxord headed downstairs to the basement, which seemed the same as ever in spite of Luxord's growing gayness. There was still a heap of junk in the corner, still odds and ends seeping out from that corner, still the TV on mute and the couch laden with blankets. There was an empty cereal bowl and a spoon nearby, a plastic cup knocked sideways across a copy of National Geographic, but all in all nothing too crazy. Xigbar kept his eyes peeled for a pair of pumps and a feather boa and swore to himself he still wasn't a close-minded bigot. It was just different now was all, and that was the best way he could reason it. He had his reasons for being a jackass and we'll leave it at that.

The two of them sat there on the couch at opposite ends, watching Patton in the king of austere silence usually reserved for graveyards, funeral homes, and the produce section of the supermarket. After some time, however, Luxord cleared his throat.

"Say," he said.

"Say what?" Xigbar asked.

"Say let's play a game."

Not bother to break his gaze away from the TV, Xigbar let out a chuckle and just shook his head. "It's a gay game, I can tell, dude. I'm not a fuckin' dip."

"Darn. I thought I had you going." Luxord let a half smile creep onto his face, and for a moment he was content to return his attentions to the movie. It didn't help, though, that he knew all the lines like a pop song he couldn't get out of his head, or that he knew for a fact that Xigbar wasn't paying much attention to it either. Having watched enough movies with Xigbar to truly know what the guy was paying attention, Luxord could plainly see by the way Xigbar's face wasn't entranced, his eyes weren't flicking from here to there or there to here—it was obvious his mind was elsewhere. He barely even noticed when Luxord scooted very slightly down the couch. But he did look up when Luxord spoke again.

"Let's say we flip this coin and the winner gets what he wants. Say, I win and I get kiss you all I like, and you win and we can to watch the rest of _Patton_ in peace and I'll even buy you a box of Oreos."

For about a minute Xigbar looked like he was on the verge of saying a flat out no and laughing hysterically in Luxord's face. But it was a tempting wager, especially because Xigbar had always—for reasons unknown to just about everyone—considered himself one lucky bastard.

"An entire box?" he asked.

"Heads I win, tails you lose. Sound up for it?" Luxord said with a beaming grin.

Never one to trust that grin, Xigbar hesitated, but not enough. "I guess," he said. And then, "That's not a two-headed coin, is it?"

"Heads…" Luxord showed him the fine noggin of Washington, "And tails," revealed the blazing eagle. Xigbar shrugged his shoulders in agreement with the bargain, assuring himself that either way he'd win because if Luxord thought he would get a rise out of him just by giving him a peck on the lips, he was dead wrong and Xigbar was going to prove that one way or another. And besides which, he freaking loved Oreos.

Up went the coin, flipped expertly from Luxord's thumb and into the air, round and round and round again before landing flat in his palm and then being ceremoniously flipped onto the back of his arm. Smirking, Luxord held out the coin for Xigbar to inspect.

"And you lose," he said. But then again, you all _knew_ Xigbar was bound to lose, didn't you?

"It's tails!" Xig more or less squawked, and damn did he feel stupid for doing it.

"Yes? And?"

"And you said—"

"I said, word for word, Xig: 'Heads I win, tails you lose.'"

Xigbar blinked and ran over those words again, face darkening as he did so. He should have known. Damn, but he should have known. Scowling so hard his pirate patch dug into his eyebrow, Xigbar muttered, "Goddammit. I knew you were a scheming bastard."

"Give it up, then!" Luxord said with a laugh, arms outstretched jokingly, face moving dangerously close…

And then in a surprising bout of quick thinking, Xigbar's arms flew up to block Luxord's advance and he babbled something that may or may not have sounded like, "Butit'snotheads. Soyoudidn'twineither."

Straining up against Xigbar's arms, Luxord frowned. "So? I win by default," he went. If Xigbar's _I-kill-you-dead-now_ face didn't say it enough, his lack of response clearly conveyed the fact that he wasn't buying it. "If you came in second in a race of two, Xig, that means you lost and I won. See now?" he insisted.

"No, I don't. You specifically _said_, man, that you won if it was heads. It's not heads. It's tails. So it's a stalemate."

"There is no stalemate in a coin toss!"

"Don't blame me, Lux. You're the one who set it up funny."

"Touché."

Having conceded defeat more or less—at least for the moment—there was little else for Luxord to do but return to where he was on the couch. Granted, he was now six or eight inches closer to where Xigbar was, but there was still a sizeable void between the two.

"You don't have to sit over there by yourself," he said.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning come sit over here with me."

Had Xigbar actually listened for once and had he actually bothered to scoot closer to Luxord, further events might have been completely avoided. You have to understand that all Luxord really, truly wanted right then was to feel Xigbar be close to him. He had no other desires, questionable or otherwise. His motives were just about as pure as they come—he just wanted to feel someone beside him. But Xigbar made the fatal mistake of laughing it off and staying put, and for those of you who aren't familiar with Patton, it is a very, very long film.

Luxord sat there in isolation for what felt like half an eternity. He'd never felt so alone in his life and he couldn't help but look back on the night before and damn it all to oblivion and back again. Had he not been so stupid, had he not nearly rendered his best friend brain-dead with his sudden onslaught of affection, then Xigbar might have seen nothing wrong in sitting closer to Luxord right then—hell, they might even have laid down on the couch like old times with hardly a care as whether it was awkward or not. But now it had no choice but to be awkward, to be painfully and irredeemably awkward, and this was all that Luxord could think about for the next hour.

It was shortly after that hour that his lonely mind reached a confusing conclusion and he rolled over onto his knees and crawled to Xigbar until the gap between them was utterly closed and every question and protest Xigbar could come up with was swallowed whole and unspoken in Luxord's mouth.

What started out as a kiss—Xigbar's eyes wide open in shock and mortification—quickly became more, because due to some error in his programming, Xigbar began to find it rather difficult to shove Luxord off and start cursing up a storm as he should have. When he told his hands to push Lux off him, the hands misunderstood—clearly—and dragged him closer. When he told his head to turn away, turn left, get air and start hollering, his head refused to budge and instead had the gall to pop wide on open and let Luxord's tongue right on into his mouth. Luxord's hands were find their way towards places they'd only previously fantasized about going before—all the very slight and forgettable places that were so easily forgotten and yet so prominently on Luxord's mind. These places were, in no particular order:

The inside of Xigbar's wrist, up and down slowly and delicately along the blue veins, which caused Xigbar to shudder and sigh like a boat on open water—

The underside of his jaw, just two inches above Xig's Adam's apple where Luxord ran his tongue and which made Xigbar say "fuck" three times fast—

Behind Xigbar's left earlobe, which was curiously clean even though one would expect boys to be bad about washing behind their ears—

The back of Xigbar's neck from where his shoulders sprouted and where Luxord placed two fingers from each had and pressed and had Xigbar shaking his head and saying something deliciously incoherent and probably stupid.

The front, then, of Xigbar's pants, which made him stare and gape and try to talk and fail so hard. And to think that Luxord had the nerve to look him in the eyes when he pressed his hand where he did. Just to _think_.

For Xigbar came the overwhelming, unbridled pressure that started somewhere in his belly and branched outwards in a quick and deadly terror: it petrified him. He was a teenage boy, you see, and he had obviously, well, masturbated like a teenage boy and his most intimate partner up to that point had been his right hand. And for his most intimate _friend_ up to that point to suddenly take the place of his hand? It was all very discombobulating, as you surely understand. Xig saw this, feared this, and registered this all, breathing sharp and hot into the crook of Luxord's neck as he did so.

"What are we--?" The "doing" went unsaid.

"To hell with it." Luxord clamped his teeth down near Xig's shoulder blade, where he could get around his collar and where he tasted like nothing but skin.

"Can't breathe," Xigbar gasped.

"You _can_," Luxord spoke into his neck.

"Hot." He tried to push Luxord up and off, to get away from the heat he was so sure came from the other boy, when it fact it was coming from himself, from that thing inside that was still scaring him somewhere near shitless. Luxord, at the very least, knew where the heat came from.

"Off," he said simply, and while Xigbar was staring stupid up at him, Luxord struggled to remove Xig's shirt with a startling lack of finesse, largely due to his shaking hands and awareness of Xig's eyes trained on him, fixed on him. He leaned down to kiss Xigbar, to try and make himself look less of an idiot, his face red and aflame and his hands shot numb—he couldn't get the last two buttons done without busting them off it seemed, so Luxord just used the open part of Xig's shirt to get at his chest, a chest that thudded with blood and fear and something else which Luxord undeniably and unmistakably loved to pieces. It was trust or faith or something like it. Luxord didn't want and didn't think to name it. He just put his hands there to feel it, kissing Xigbar senseless while he did so.

How Xigbar had been placed at the bottom of this two-person heap, he didn't know. Or rather, he did: he'd simply let Luxord crawl on top and hadn't bothered to move. But the problem was that he couldn't even bring himself to care about that, what with the way Luxord's mouth felt on his, the way every touch and sound and smell that came from the other boy was pumped with feeling and devotion, like Lux had kept a series of perfect kisses on reserve for him—uniquely and distinctly him. Luxord's hands felt like warm butter and his lips could feel like nothing other than what they were because what they were was good and perfect enough. And those smooth hands pressed and pulled and passed over that burning chest and those lips stayed riveted to his and it was only when those hands started to wander elsewhere that a problem arose.

Or rather, the problem had already arisen some time before the wandering hands. It was just that Xigbar didn't want Luxord to know—he was terrified that he should know.

"Stop-stop…"

"No."

"Lux—"

"_Xigbar_." The fact that Luxord had just managed to _growl_ Xigbar's name was highly disturbing, though not nearly as disturbing as the way Xigbar felt his body respond immediately to it. Half blind with something he refused to admit was desire, Xigbar's hands clumsily fumbled on between the two of them, grabbed hold of Luxord's shoulders and pushed, held Luxord at bay, though barely.

"Stop," Xigbar said again. _Goddamn_, he thought,_ I sound like a horny Dirty Harry. Someone just fucking shoot me. _"Lux, just stop."

"_No_."

It was approximately at that moment, when, two floors above them, Larxene accidentally tipped over a bottle of liquid death nail polish and cursed twelve times in a row and when, outside, the mailman dropped a letter to the ground only to rip the rear of his pants open trying to pick it up—it was at that moment of unfortunate events that Xigbar's merry road appeared not so merry anymore and Luxord slammed into the ground with an abrupt thud. Xigbar was standing up, arms akimbo, looking positively menacing if you chose to ignore the raging boner that was very much apparent in his pants. But if any man ever kept a straight face under such conditions, let it be known: that man was Xigbar.

"_Dude_," he said, "I'm **not** a **chick**. You don't _say_ no to me."

Somewhere, in the graveyards of the nation, one thousand feminists turned over and cried into their coffins.

"I'm sorry." Luxord was still on the ground looking hopelessly and tragically traumatized and suddenly Xigbar couldn't shake the feeling that he'd gone and done a bad thing. Lux looking like a kicked puppy was never something he'd seen or ever intended to see, but there the sight was before him. Luxord said he was sorry again and when Xigbar didn't say anything—what could he say, after all, that it was okay? It wasn't—when Xigbar didn't say anything he said it once more: "I'm so, so sorry, Xig. I don't—I have no idea."

"Yeah, well. I don't know where the hell that came from either." The two of them sat down on the couch again, resuming their places at their respective ends. Xigbar was resisting fixing his pants with every bone in his body, minus one, which was at that moment yelling profanities in his head in languages Xigbar didn't even think he'd known. Laughing nervously and completely moronically, Xig then said, "Boy, that brought the awkward on real fast."

Because he was right. It had.

The rest of the film was lost on them, wreck of sweaty palms and sideways glances that they were.

"_For over a thousand years, Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of a triumph - a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters and musicians and strange animals from the conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children, robed in white, stood with him in the chariot, or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror, holding a golden crown, and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting."_

"Movie's over," Lux said.

"Yeah. Look at that."

"Xig?"

"Huh."

Luxord sat on the edge of the couch, staring at his hands like they either had all the answers within them or prompted him to provide explanation and answer enough for himself. He took a deep breath, let it out, and then started again, sounding tired and perhaps the tiniest bit afraid. "Xig, I've been hopelessly in love with you for a really, really fucking long time. I'm sorry if I'm… if I seem a bit psychotic."

To this, Xigbar opened his mouth to try and respond in at least five different ways, but none of them seemed like they would work. None of them seemed understanding but not condescending, approving without encouraging—Xigbar didn't know how to put it or what he wanted to say and he was pretty sure that being a smart ass here would do him no good. But, unable to fall back on anything else, that was all he had. "A _bit_ psychotic?' he joked. "Try potential sexual predator. We'll start there and work our way up." Yet it came as no surprise when Luxord wasn't laughing. "Sooo… How long?" Xig asked.

"Remember that picnic? The one where we hiked five miles out, wound up in a farm, and ate about six apples each? Your mom packed us peanut butter. Celery sticks. Cookies. You wore those Velcro strapped shoes that made you look like the second dumbest person on the planet, but I loved those, too."

"Dude. We were _nine_. And I'm pretty sure you had a pair of shoes exactly like those."

"I know."

Xigbar, too, now stared at his hands. "You've been in love with me. Since we were nine."

"That is what it sounds like, isn't it?"

"Wow," he said. "_Wow_."

"It—you know. Obviously I didn't up and look at you and just _know_. It just. I mean. I knew eventually. I'd felt it all along, I just didn't quite know what it was. Until then." Xigbar said nothing and both he and Luxord continued to stare and their fingers. Lux let out a deep chuckle that came up lost from the memory, that summer afternoon in some stranger's orchard, the kind of idealistic day from childhood that one often thinks will stay in their mind forever, but which often is left to fade away over time. He swore to himself, as he'd sworn upwards of a thousand times before—he would never forget. The moment when—

"But when did you _know_? How did you, even? We were kids. Tiny, stupid kids. Just—when?" Xig asked him.

"The exact moment?" Lux said. Xigbar nodded and Luxord could feel his eyes on him from three feet away and he desperately wanted three feet to be two feet, one foot, and zero. "You were climbing this one tree and you got yourself an apple. Then you grabbed another—the reddest, brightest one—and you threw it down to me."

"I thought that one hit you in the head."

"Well it did, but I knew right then that I was also madly in love with you and I couldn't stay mad at you long because I _was_ in love with you and because twelve seconds later you fell out of the three from laughter anyway, so my revenge was had."

"That sounds perfectly healthy, Lux. You deranged lunatic."

"Well that was a bit redundant, wouldn't you say?"

"Nah, being deranged and being a lunatic are completely different things. If you're a lunatic you go crazy sometimes—yanno, lunar. Moon. The moon makes you nuts. If you're deranged you're just disturbed. So being a deranged lunatic means that even though you're always a messed up son of a bitch, you have recurring moments of even crazier craziness."

"I love a smart man."

"That you do."

"No, I mean—"

"Dude. Sarcasm is not appreciated. _That you do_."

The two of them exchanged an awkward smile before their hands called their attention back and their pink faces turned and obeyed. Xigbar knew that in normal situations, under the normal conditions, this would be the part where he confessed his love for Luxord, too. The only problem lay in the fact that his love wasn't really there. Luxord meant a lot to him, true, but only as a best friend—and that wasn't a lie he was telling himself. He knew, with every ounce of who he was, that he had never been in love with Luxord, and he was hardly about to do the boy the disservice of lying to him now.

So when Luxord asked so cautiously and hesitantly, "Then where does this leave us?" Xigbar's answer was as honest as he could make it.

"I dunno," he said.

"I would say that I know you thoroughly enjoyed our little couch adventure, but—oh, lookit, I already went and said it," Luxord said with a snap of his fingers and a forgetful sigh, something like a feigned apology written on his face.

"Yeah, alright, I enjoyed it. But I'm a horny teenager. I enjoy anything I can get." Realizing how that sounded, Xigbar wished that words were food that he could just swallow so as to have them never see the light of day again. "And I mean that in the absolute least offensive way," he tacked on.

"It's cool, I get it," said Luxord, though it was painfully obvious that it wasn't cool and that he didn't get it.

"If you were a chick, man, there'd be no second thoughts." Xigbar tried to look like he was pleading innocent because he felt he was—he was innocent and had to be, innocent of ever feeling anything more than blindingly platonic adoration for the rock-solid and stellar friendship alone that existed between them.

But "What difference does it make?" asked Luxord.

And "How can you even ask that?" said Xig.

The two sat there at a perfect impasse. Luxord couldn't let Xigbar off the hook and Xigbar flat out refused to stay on it. It may well have been the one sole issue that the dynamic duo could not see fit to compromise on. "I just don't understand," Luxord said. "I mean. There should be no difference. If you care for someone, you care for them. If you're attracted to someone, you're attracted to them. I know—I felt, Xig. I know—"

Both of them thought back to what had transpired just minute ago, that thing roaring and blazing and heating Xig up like he was plugged into the fires of hell itself and damn did hell feel scorching-good. He scratched a non-existent itch on the side of his head just to give his right hand something to do. It'd started to twitch and that was probably about as far away from a good sign as you could get.

_I felt, Xig. I know—_

"Well you felt wrong," was all he could say in his defense. Even that, though. Even that and he couldn't bring himself to look at Luxord because it felt too much like lying and Xigbar had never before told a lie or anything like it to Luxord. He refused to start then. He would find some way to make it _not_ be a lie and it would be Luxord's fault, he reasoned, because Luxord forced his hand and he _forced_ Xigbar to defend his honor and he _forced_ him to lie—it had to be his fault.

Luxord looked at Xigbar out of the corner of his eye. He saw a guilty eighteen year old who was the most distinctly impressive looking person Luxord had ever known and it was hardly a matter of free will when he felt himself being pulled towards the other until his mouth hovered inches from Xigbar's strange, pointed, curiously touchable ear. "You wouldn't let me get this close if you didn't," Luxord said in something that could barely even be called a whisper.

"I don't." _Don't what? What am I defending this time?_ Xig wondered. He tried to remember, tried to figure out where the hell their conversation had gone and what it was Lux was accusing him of now, but the other boy's mouth was blowing warm air down his neck and there was still that bonfire going on in his gut, complete with scantily clad tribal dancers and the distant and heavy thud of a drum beat that sounded suspiciously in time with his heart.

"You wouldn't let me do this if you didn't." Luxord's hand was sliding further down his chest again, and came to rest—Xigbar was horrified to notice—palm to his belly button, fingers splayed dangerously close to the button of his jeans.

"I defini—I definitely don't." _Shit. Fuck._ _What don't I?_

"But you do."

"I don't."

"You do."

"_Don't_." It wasn't a comeback, it was a command. Luxord's fingers had moved for the button and it was a line Xigbar just wouldn't or couldn't have him crossing. He stood up again, pulse roaring in his ears and chest on fire again and Luxord tried to reach after him—"Luxord, don't! Jesus _Christ_, man! Three weeks ago you were normal. What the hell had to change?"

"I wasn't normal, Xig, you were just ignorant," Luxord countered. "And if you storm out of my house again you'll just reaffirm my growing belief that you're an immature preteen girl. If you're going to get pissed, get pissed, but get something. Don't just run away like a—"

"What, a pussy? You can't even say the word, can you?" Xigbar barked an incredulous laugh and leaned down, putting his face too close to Luxord's for his comfort but refusing to back down all the same. "Dude, don't you miss just being the kickass, badass guys we were? I mean, _no_ shit could bring us down. Now we're these whiny sacks of just—just, I don't even know. All we do is bitch. Why'd you have to go change everything?"

"We're still badass," Luxord insisted.

"_No we're not_. We're just as sappy and pathetic as everyone else now. Yanno? I was so awesome just not giving a damn about anything."

At that—at those words—Luxord's expression changed. Xigbar couldn't quite say how, but that flicker of a certain something that had been burning in them all night suddenly went out. He couldn't fathom why. He couldn't even identify the flicker. He felt as though he'd never known Luxord less than he did right then.

And Luxord, whose next words came out flat and empty, appeared as though he didn't care whether Xigbar knew him at all. He said, "I know you probably think that your 'I-couldn't-care-less' attitude made you awesome like that, but it really just make you look like a colossal prick."

"…What?"

"Nobody buys it anymore. You're too invested. You've been that way for a long time, you've just been denying it." He started to reach one hand up towards Xigbar's face where a stray lock of hair hung down onto his cheek, but something stayed his hand and returned it to his lap. "Look," he said. "Xiggy. You've always lived under the impression that you'd die before you'd turned thirty and you'd never have to amount to crap in your life or do much of anything. Face it. That's just not who you are anymore. You're an outstanding friend. To everyone. Really. And to me. And I think…" Luxord shook his head. "I thought we could—could be more than that."

"Well you thought wrong. You're kinda forgetting one key fact. I'm not gay."

"You know why I had to go to Bridges in the first place? Why Mom pulled me out of public?" Luxord asked. "It was because she thought I was way too close to you."

"Lux, that's not even—"

"It's true. Ask Larx if you don't believe me. She may be a bitch, but you know she doesn't lie for anyone."

Never before in the history of their friendship had a day ended so badly. When Xigbar accidentally kicked over the three-foot Lego tour Luxord had spent three days constructing—it was bad. When Luxord had forgotten to tie Xigbar's surfboard to the hood of the car properly and they drove a mile and a half dragging and scarring the thing against the roadside behind the car—that was bad. But they had never had nothing to say to each other and they had never just wanted so strongly to will the other into not existing anymore. Lucky for them, and for all of us, just willing someone to disappear never amounts to much. If it had—had the boys been successful in their wishing—there isn't a shadow of a doubt that they would've lived to regret it not two minutes later. Even on that day, the most awkward, unfortunate day of their friendship.

At the front door where they parted ways, Xigbar got his voice back and pieced one and a half thoughts together to form some kind of speech, if you could call it that.

"I'm sorry about today," Xigbar forced out. "About earlier today. Yanno. I, uh. I said some pretty shitty stuff, man."

"Doesn't matter."

x x x

Winter break is hard to let go of.

With the end of the holiday season comes the realization that the world will not be merry forever, that lights must be put back in boxes, trees laid out on curbsides, and presents worn into normalcy, no longer shining and sparkling new. The most self-conscious among us realize just how much butter there is in holiday cookies. New Year's resolutions are made and broken like cheap pottery. Children of all ages return to school, adults return to work, and they feel this time the weight of understanding that they are in it for the long haul now—that it will be months before they are anywhere near smelling that sweet air of freedom again.

Demyx found a way to suffer through it to the best of his ability. He sat down to lunch, tore into his brown paper bag and pulled out—

"Fuck, I love rice cakes," he said.

Kairi looked at him curiously, kindly informed him of how weird he was, and returned to sipping her strawberry milk and flipping through last month's print of Interview. The whole gang was all there, it was just that most of them were comatose. And it was precisely because of this curious comatose state that Kairi had even decided it was safe enough to sit at that table anyway. She still resented Axel for what he'd done, but a little December R&R seemed to have done her some good. At least she was back to wearing normal clothes and hadn't so much as mentioned a hostess gift since the dreaded nightmare that was Roxas' Christmas party.

"It's like eating air," Demyx continued, still completely on and into his rice cakes. "From heaven, man. Heavenly air, compressed oh-so-gently into this tasty tidbit before me." He took an absurdly loud, huge, crunchy bite and grinned only to find that no one else was either listening or watching. "Want some, Roxas?" he asked. Roxas didn't seem to hear him, so Demyx asked again. Finally, on the third try, Demyx not-so-accidentally delivered the smallest of all kicks to Roxas' shin under the table.

"Huh?"

"You okay, man? You've barely said anything all lunch and your pudding cup is shocking untouched."

"Yeah, I'm cool."

Demyx shrugged, took another bite of rice cake, and looked over to his left. "You Axel?"

"Huh."

Clearly not amused, Demyx polished off his rice cake and looked to his right. Xigbar was in the exact same deadened state of being and Demyx was just about ready to smack them all stupid, he'd just had that much of it.

"What's _with_ all you guys? Are you all sick?" he asked. "Pig flu? Foot in mouth? What the hell is it?"

Shortly after that, Xigbar reached the conclusion that love was not a good thing. It was hyped up nonsense—something someone devised long ago to try and get a rise out of people, to try and ruin people's lives. It was, all things considered, clearly not worth the trouble. Xigbar would much rather be a cold-hearted bastard than a hyper-emotional fucktard any day. He had made his decision then, and as far as he knew, he was going to stick with it.

(x) (x) (x)

LOVELY READERS:

So. I have not updated in over a year. I have received PM's I've never gotten back to, LJ comments I've completely forgotten about—even reviews wondering if I was **dead**. Oh. My. God. Could I be a more terrible person? There's no eloquent way for me to stress this enough, so I'm just gonna try to condense all my blather down into three syllables for you to savor and enjoy responsibly:

**I'M SORRY.**

(Now make sure there's a designated driver nearby—them's weren't Jell-O shots, tyke.)

The long and short of it is that I'm in college (still), trying to become a teacher (still), now looking at grad school options to also try and learn to write better (still?). I am living the life I'm pretty sure I've always wanted, pursuing some hazy, stupid-sounding dream that never seemed like it would amount to anything more than just that—a dream. Years ago, I never would have thought that I would want to be published. You have all changed my mind. …I mean, other things built up on top of that to change my mind, but you were all the foundation. That doesn't sound as awesome as what I first said, so scratch that add-on and pretend you never read it.

A big part of the reason I've been MIA for pretty much ever is that I've been working on original shit. It's radically different from the fanfiction I write here, but I hope to polish up a few short stories I've had for a while and get them up on FictionPress eventually. The link will appear on my profile whenever eventually rolls around. The longer thing I've been working on is at a crossroads, which is why I just happened to detach myself from it long enough to look at again, to look at fandoms again, and to remember: _Oh yeah, I used to do things there_. Please refer back to those stressed three syllables above. I still mean them.

The long story short is that while I am not "back" in the sense that I'll be updating nearly as often as I once did, I—well, I'm trying. But I'm also trying to figure out my own original work and I guess that all I can really do is twiddle my thumbs and hope for your support no matter what crap it is I'm spewing out onto the computer screen. (Speaking of crap: OH LORD, re-reading this fic to remember all of it was so painful. Somewhere on my to-do list is rewriting the complete and utter bull that was the first third of this fic, I swear.)

I will still try to write fanfiction! But it will be like the secret midnight doughnut to my original work diet of celery and carrots. Also, I'll probably only read things if they're rec'd to me, so if you want me to read something or think I will look completely stupid haunting the outskirts of the fandom now that I have not reach such-and-such, please tell me. There are so any fics on here now, I don't even _know_.

To wrap up a heinously long author's note: THREE SYLLABLES, thank you for being understanding, I'm not dead, but thank you for your concern, I apologize for letting you down, I will make an honest effort to not to go missing for another whole year like that, and I hope I haven't scared you all away.


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